This is not true. In the 80s? 90s? E.J. Corey spearheaded an attempt to create a database of all chemical reactions and tried to get programmers to design expert systems to create intelligent chemistry planners. If anything, they were too early to the game.
I suspect chemistry was playing about with automatic (retro)synthesis way earlier than you think: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/bk-1977-0061.ch001. I think it was work started in the 60's, and big names worked on it.
This is not true. In the 80s? 90s? E.J. Corey spearheaded an attempt to create a database of all chemical reactions and tried to get programmers to design expert systems to create intelligent chemistry planners. If anything, they were too early to the game.