One thing AI is already taking over: the Nobel Prize
2024’s second AI-related Nobel Prize, this time for chemistry, was awarded to a group of scientists who solved one of the grand challenges of chemistry, predicting and designing the structure of proteins, by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.
Splitting the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognized the work of Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for developing AlphaFold2, an AI model which they used to predict the structure of virtually all 200 million known proteins, the building blocks of life.
Hassabis is the cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Jumper is its director.
The prize committee said AlphaFold2 “has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.”
The other half of the prize was awarded to University of Washington biochemist David Baker, for building computational tools used to create entirely novel proteins, which has long been a dream of researchers. Since creating the first new protein in 2003, “his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors,” the award committee wrote.
As the field of AI explodes with new models and businesses rushing to convince the public that AI is the future of computing, these AI-related breakthroughs stand as noteworthy examples of the technology’s potential benefit to humanity.
Hassabis is the cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Jumper is its director.
The prize committee said AlphaFold2 “has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.”
The other half of the prize was awarded to University of Washington biochemist David Baker, for building computational tools used to create entirely novel proteins, which has long been a dream of researchers. Since creating the first new protein in 2003, “his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors,” the award committee wrote.
As the field of AI explodes with new models and businesses rushing to convince the public that AI is the future of computing, these AI-related breakthroughs stand as noteworthy examples of the technology’s potential benefit to humanity.
