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GWYNNE DYER: Why medical science is both the biggest winner and loser in the AI boom

Scientists are now able to use generative AI to design new bacteriophages - which can help medicine, but also poses a threat globally

‘Artificial intelligence’ based on Large Language Models is shaping up to be the most efficient destroyer of value since the South Sea Bubble.

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After the Crash, some specific functions of AI will eventually turn out to be genuinely revenue-generating, and a lot of jobs will duly disappear.

But the biggest winner (and potentially biggest loser) is medical science.

How AI designed viruses

Dr. Brian Hie, a chemical engineer at Stanford University in California, has just revealed that his team has made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence. They are ‘bacteriophages’, viruses that only infect bacteria and are widely used to treat people with infections that resist other treatments.

However, natural bacteriophages sometimes fail, so Dr. Hie used generative AI to design new ones that might do the job.

AI generated thousands of designs for new genomes that more or less fit the bill, and he chose around 300 of........

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