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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.
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AI-powered predictions show proteins finding their shapes
Science.org — 2021 Review
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“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.
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How AI Is Shaping Scientific Discovery
nationalacademies.org — Nov 6, 2023
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“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.”
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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.
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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."
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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:
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
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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” ...
Breakthroughs that change our lives
REPSOL — Global
The wheel, the light bulb, and the cellphone are three examples of disruptive technologies. At the time, these innovations caused a profound break with previous patterns, bringing about major changes in people's lives.
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Harvard Business School professor and business consultant, Clayton Christensen, coined the term “disruptive innovation” in the magazine Harvard Business Review back in 1995.
For Christensen, technology that causes a relevant change and abruptly interrupts the way in which industries, companies, and consumers operate constitutes a disruptive innovation. This process represents a period of adaption such as what we are experiencing with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, marked by digitalization and emerging technological advances.
A good example is personal computers, as the technological advancement in this field shows clear disruptive elements. If we take a look back, we see how computers completely transformed our way of studying, working, and spending leisure time. Schools and families wanted to buy a computer, increasing demand, and as a result, the typewriter began to fall into disuse, thus producing notable changes in the market.
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How Disruptive Innovation Happens and What It Means for Business
inkbotdesign.com — Sept 26, 2022
How Disruptive Innovation Happens and What It Means for Business
Disruptive innovation occurs when a new technology is introduced that changes the way people live. Usually, innovation is so powerful and valuable that it completely revolutionises how we do things.
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Disruptive innovation is a type of innovation that is so different from the norm that it changes everything. It's the kind of innovation that transforms industries and creates new markets. The innovation creates the next Apple, Amazon, or Google.
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How disruptive innovation works
Disruptive innovation involves a company creating a new product or service significantly better than before.
A disruptive product or service offers something new and unique to the market.
For example, the iPhone was a disruptive innovation for the smartphone market. It was the first smartphone that allowed users to make calls, send messages, and browse the internet, and it was the first phone to incorporate a touch screen.
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The pace of technological change sometimes — usually — has a mind of its own.
We can wish away the innovations — but that doesn’t make them go away. We can hold out on adoption and buy-in — like me and cellphones — but that doesn’t make them any less valuable to the 99% of people who own them. Hopefully their many benefits, outweigh their many annoyances.
Change happens. Whether we want it to, or not. Best to be aware of its progress, and potential benefits; and its possible perils too. Future societies will be disrupted, in ways we can barely imagine now.
From what I’ve learned about AI training innovations happening recently, we’re about to enter the “exponential growth” part of the “recursive-learning” curve. Be advised ...
But more on that later. This is enough to ponder for one night’s read.
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It’s complicated.
It’s inevitable.
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And it’s at times, very scary too.
“Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,” said Putin, reports RT. “It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”
theverge.com — Sept 4, 2017
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