A team of scientists, led by Professor José R Penadés at Imperial College London, spent over a decade researching superbugs and their immunity to antibiotics. However, a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool created by Google solved the complex problem in just two days.
Penadés’ team had been working on understanding how superbugs form and spread, with one hypothesis being that they can form a “tail” from different viruses, allowing them to move between species. This idea was unique to their research and hadn’t been published anywhere else.
To test the AI tool, Penadés gave it a prompt with his hypothesis, and it returned four potential answers within 48 hours. The top answer matched Penadés’ research exactly, suggesting that superbugs may indeed form “tails” in the same way.
While some worry about the impact of AI on jobs, Penadés believes it will be a powerful tool for scientific advances. He calls it “spectacular” and says it has given his team a new opportunity to make groundbreaking discoveries.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyz6e9edy3o