We need our simple symbols, but machines might not

A mess of curly black arrows on a white background

Source: MSSA / shutterstock.com

Will the curly arrow still be with us in another 100 years? 

Are chemists as ruthless with the pragmatist’s razor when a device is no longer needed? Chemists are accomplished at reducing complexity to its key components, but to a future artificial intelligence or a million-qubit quantum computer, being given a drawing of a molecule would be like working with a child’s crayon drawing.