The main reasons would be: poor work/life balance, low pay for what is expected (at first), constant work with zero downtime, hazardous chemical exposure, positions that matter are extremely competitive, etc. Redundancy by automation isn’t even a consideration I’d list actually.

I’ve worked in lab science for many years, I now run my own department. I’ve done everything from bench work to multimillion dollar project management.

The thing everyone is hanging on to is “a machine will be able to do my job” and yet they are never asking whether their company will actually get a machine to do their job at all. Just because an AI can do your job doesn’t mean it ever will.

In my experience automation in lab science only goes so far. You can have tons of automation, every lab I’ve worked at has had automation to varying degrees. But we always needed to have techs to fix the instruments, we need scientists to troubleshoot things the instruments cannot, we need bench workers who can do things that are just not feasible for a robot to perform, you need IT, you need QA, QC, Regulatory, etc. The list goes on.

Could an AI do those jobs? Probably. But no biotech laboratory I’ve ever worked at would pony up the money to do that, not now, not in the future. You’d get laughed out of the building. if I proposed using chatgpt to write methods and protocols, I’d probably have my expertise questioned. Again, could we use it to do this? Yeah sure. Will we? Maybe. But probably not.

I’m not ignorant to the abilities of AI or the “tremendous progress” everyone always gets riled up about everyday on this sub. But the reality outside of pure computer based tech is just not what people paint it to be online, at all.

Nothing I’ve seen in the progress of AI makes me worry for my job or that of anyone in my department, now or in the future. they certainly could build a robot with an intelligence to replace me and do my job, but every person at my company who would make the decisions to push that forward would probably respond to the notion with “what? No? Why would I do that?”

maybe I’ll be proven wrong, as a scientist I’m always open to the possibility, but my observations lead me to strongly doubt it.

tl;dr could an AI replace us? Yes. Will anyone actually do that? Highly unlikely from my experience in the industry.