The Evolution of Agency in Chemistry: From Alchemy to AI

The article analyzes a fundamental paradigm shift in chemistry—the transition from the direct design of specific molecules to the creation of systems and procedures for searching for them. The author indicates that modern computational and autonomous chemistry replaces classical rational design with iterative cognitive loops. A key example is Frances Arnold's directed evolution of enzymes, which utilizes a mechanism of variation and selection to optimize proteins in vast conformational spaces instead of full structural prediction. This philosophical shift moves the chemist's role from the level of an executor of a specific project to that of an architect of rules for generating and selecting solutions, where matter itself becomes a computational operator in the process of acquiring knowledge.