Comment by jarenmf
2 years ago
This is probably one of the best applications of AI in science in terms of impact so far. I can't think of any other problem with the same potential impact.
EDIT: grammar
2 years ago
This is probably one of the best applications of AI in science in terms of impact so far. I can't think of any other problem with the same potential impact.
EDIT: grammar
AlphaFold is the best counterpoint to tech cynics.
One of the largest public tech companies in the world funded a multi-year scientific project, executed the research flawlessly and moved forward an entire scientific field. They then went on to openly release the code _and_ data, working with a publicly funded organization (EMBL-EBI) to ensure researchers across the globe can easily access the outputs.
I'm not arguing that every tech company is a net positive for humanity. Google itself isn't perfect. Google + DeepMind is setting a bloody high bar though.
Elon Musk moved EVs to the mainstream. Starlink. Has the vision to go to Mars.
Amazon basically put malls out of business which are hugely environmentally destructive.
Bill Gates is doing stuff too I think.
Big tech does some good things.
>Amazon basically put malls out of business which are hugely environmentally destructive.
I'm all for tech doing good but this is a hugeeeee stretch
1 reply →
This is definitely one of the most exciting spaces in AI right now. Another somewhat-related startup is PostEra (medicinal chemistry for drug discovery via AI) https://postera.ai/about/
You are right and when thinking about it I can see 2 problems which I hope in the future can have even more impact:
1. Using AI to determine the most efficient methods of doing mathematical expressions, transformations and computation algorithms - division, square root, maybe traveling salesman - these which take relatively high amount of CPU cycles to compute and are used everywhere. If inputs and outputs can be assigned to it, AI can eventually build a transformation which can be reproduced using a silicon.
2. Physics phenomena in general, not only organic protein, can be measured and with sufficient ability to quantize them to inputs and experimentally obtained outputs to train the network, we could in theory establish new formulas or constants and progress the understanding of the Universe.
the groundworks, at least partially, happen as you typed this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01627-2
AI translate has probably a bigger worldwide impact so far.
jarenmf said "in science" - but it is an interesting question how much automated translation has helped scientists translate papers from other languages.
It even goes both ways - it allows non-native English speakers to publish their work in correct technical/scientific English with far less barriers.