(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A.I. -- the Promise and the Peril [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-05 — — As with most new technologies and innovations, the promise and the peril of releasing them into the economic world — is in a word: “complicated.” They usually hold untold benefits for companies, economies, and even individuals. Some of the classics include: fire, the wheel, agriculture, medicine, books, education. Here are just a few ways that Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already altering the way such innovations happen. Don’t look now — but AI is already changing the world. Especially in the arena of Science discovery. Google DeepMind’s new AI tool helped create more than 700 new materials MIT Technology Review — Nov 29, 2023 From EV batteries to solar cells to microchips, new materials can supercharge technological breakthroughs. But discovering them usually takes months or even years of trial-and-error research. Google DeepMind hopes to change that with a new tool that uses deep learning to dramatically speed up the process of discovering new materials. Called graphical networks for material exploration (GNoME), the technology has already been used to predict structures for 2.2 million new materials, of which more than 700 have gone on to be created in the lab and are now being tested. It is described in a paper published in Nature today. [...] AI-powered predictions show proteins finding their shapes Science.org — 2021 Review [...] “I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” John Moult, a structural biologist at the University of Maryland, Shady Grove, and CASP co-founder, said at the time. This year, AI predictions shifted into overdrive. In mid-July, Baker and his colleagues reported that their AI program RoseTTAFold had solved the structures of hundreds of proteins, all from a class of common drug targets. A week later, DeepMind scientists reported they had done the same for 350,000 proteins found in the human body—44% of all known human proteins. In coming months, they expect their database will grow to 100 million proteins across all species, nearly half the total number believed to exist. The next step is to predict which of those proteins work together and how they interact. DeepMind is already doing just that. In an October preprint, its scientists unveiled 4433 protein-protein complexes, revealing which proteins bind to one another—and how. In November, RoseTTAFold added another 912 complexes to the tally. [...] How AI Is Shaping Scientific Discovery nationalacademies.org — Nov 6, 2023 [...] “I let the algorithm run, and within a few hours it found exactly the solution that we as human scientists couldn’t find for many weeks,” he said. Using the blueprint created by the computer, his colleagues were able to build the setup in the laboratory and use it to observe the [quantum] phenomenon for the first time. In a subsequent case, the algorithm overcame a barrier by reviving a long-forgotten technique and applying it in a new context. The scientists were immediately able to generalize this idea to other situations, and they wrote about it in a paper for Physical Review Letters. “But, if you think about it, none of the core authors of this paper came up with the idea that is described in the paper,” said Krenn. “The idea came completely, implicitly from the machine. We were just analyzing what the machine has done.” [...] New proteins, better batteries: Scientists are using AI to speed up discoveries NPR.org, Morning Edition — Oct 12, 2023 Hypothesis hunters But some researchers believe that AI could take a more fundamental role in scientific discovery. Hannaneh Hajishirzi, who works at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, wants to develop new AI systems similar to ChatGPT for science. The goal would be a system that could crunch all the scientific literature in a field and then use that knowledge to develop new ideas, or hypotheses. Because the scientific literature can span thousands of papers published over the course of decades, an AI system might be able to find new connections between studies and suggest exciting new lines of study that a human would otherwise miss . [...] But if AI scientists are the future, Susana Vazquez-Torres at the University of Washington doesn't seem worried about it. She and her labmates are attacking a wide swath of problems using their designer proteins — everything from new drugs, to vaccines, to improving photosynthesis in plants and finding new compounds to help break down plastics. Vazquez-Torres says there are so many problems that need to be solved, and that many exciting discoveries lie ahead thanks to AI . "We can just make drugs right now so easily with these new tools," she says. Job security isn't a worry at all. "For me, it's the opposite — it's exciting." — — Robot, you worry too much. But new technologies and innovations — such as the PC, the I-Phone, the automobile, and now AI — hold untold risks for companies, economies, and even individuals as well. Some of the classics include: isolation, dependence, climate change, job displacement. Ignoring the hyperbolic, low-probability sci-fi “terminator” scenarios, here are some of potential and practical perils, that the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligent systems will pose: The 15 Biggest Risks Of Artificial Intelligence Bernard Marr, Forbes — June 2, 2023 Here are the biggest risks of artificial intelligence: 1. Lack of Transparency 2. Bias and Discrimination 3. Privacy Concerns 4. Ethical Dilemmas 5. Security Risks 6. Concentration of Power 7. Dependence on AI 8. Job Displacement 9. Economic Inequality 10. Legal and Regulatory Challenges 11. AI Arms Race 12. Loss of Human Connection 13. Misinformation and Manipulation 14. Unintended Consequences 15. Existential Risks — — There are always new places to go … new frontiers to explore … new markets to tap. If only there were some easy way to get there — fast! But the argument will also be made — that such new technologies and innovations are in a word “inevitable” … Or in the parlance of previous such disruptions: “Get on board, or get left behind” ... Disruptive technologies [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/5/2209938/-A-I-the-Promise-and-the-Peril?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/