Source: Fortune
Summary
Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, and James Manyika, Google’s senior vice president of technology and society, discuss the potential of AI to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and address global challenges. They highlight the success of AlphaFold, a freely available AI system that has been used by over 3 million researchers worldwide to tackle issues such as disease treatment and climate resilience. The authors argue that AI has the potential to improve public health, food security, and crisis resilience, but that progress remains uneven due to barriers to resources and infrastructure.
Our Reading
The numbers tell one story.
AlphaFold, a 50-year grand challenge in protein structure prediction, was solved by AI five years ago. Since then, the AlphaFold Protein Database has been used by over 3 million researchers worldwide. AI is being used to tackle regional problems with global significance, from understanding the spread of diseases to developing climate-resilient seeds. The authors envision a future where AI is accessible to everyone, enabling scientists to make breakthroughs everywhere.
But the real story is that the biggest opportunities and risks are international in nature, and can only be tackled together.
Author: Evan Null
