> Workers feeling threatened by technology think the technology is bad or worthless, news at 11.
I appreciate the sentiment and I think it's understandable to think that. In this particular case, however, my co-worker was one of the smartest / most talented people I've worked with. I can assure you that he did not feel threatened in any way. His comment was sardonic, but not borne of insecurity.
To be fair, the members of the modeling group were also quite talented. They were largely derived from one of the more famous physical/chemical modeling groups at one of the HYPS schools. But even they acknowledged that on a good day, the best they could do was offer suggestions / ideas to the medicinal chemists.
In fact, one of the members of the modeling group said this to me once (paraphrasing): The medicinal chemists are the high-priests of drug discovery. We can help, but they run the show.
As mentioned by someone who responded to my original comment, the usefulness of ML/modeling has likely gotten much better over the past 10 - 15 years.