I don't like AI, but ... how exactly should AI be unable to come up with working solutions in a fully automated lab? The problem set is finite. Either AI can solve things, or it can not, but there really is no objective reasons why AI could not possibly solve xyz, e. g. drugs binding to a molecular receptor - that is a finite problem set. So there must be another explanation here. Either that the quality is lacking, or that some people are anxious of losing money here.

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fabian2k a day ago | parent | next [-]

The claim by AI CEOs is that AI will cure most diseases in the next 10 years.

Even if it could automate lab work fully today, that still wouldn't get you close to that.

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signatoremo a day ago | parent [-]

They did not claim that AI will cure diseases. Only that it would speed up the process, potentially help curing some diseases. That’s a very different claim.

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benregenspan a day ago | parent | next [-]

"I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in ~5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound" is a direct quote from Dario Amodei. In his original essay he makes clear that that doesn't mean all those cures will be distributed to all on that time-scale, but I would still interpret this as a wildly ambitious prediction that AI will cure most diseases. He predicts in the same essay that it will be responsible for a 10X speedup in drug development.

	▲	signatoremo a day ago \| parent [-]
		Again, they did not claim AI would do it. Only that it would help speeding up biology and medicine.

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fabian2k a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> The bulk of the essay is devoted to refuting skepticism of AI’s potential in health and biology, and showing why I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in ~5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound to ordinary people and frankly to biologists as well (I used to be one!).

https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762

The paraphrased version seems accurate to me, based on this tweet which I assume is the source.

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PeterisP a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is no such thing (yet?) as a fully automated lab. We can't tell if a drug will pass basic first toxicity screening (e.g. if a healthy mouse is given a small dose of the drug, will it kill or otherwise significantly harm the mouse?) without actually doing experiments on mice.

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suddenlybananas a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What do you mean by the problem set is finite?

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estearum a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Because "fully automated lab" doesn't include "put it into humans and observe them for years."

It's trivial to make drugs that are as-promising as working drugs in the lab, but then end up not to be actually working drugs in people.