AI Makes Major Biology Breakthrough in Weeks That Took Humans 134 Years
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In 1889, a doctor discovered that the human body can make more red blood cells on demand when it needs them. Scientists spent over a century trying to understand how this process works.
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Last summer, computers running AI software taught themselves biology by analyzing data about millions of human cells, without being told what the data meant.
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The AI made a major discovery on its own in just 6 weeks - it identified the rare kidney cell type that makes the hormone that triggers red blood cell production when oxygen is low. This took humans 134 years to discover.
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The AI was trained on raw cell data at Stanford, similar to how ChatGPT learns language by analyzing large volumes of text.
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The discovery shows AIs can learn about and make advances in biology without human guidance, indicating they may someday teach us new things about life we don't already know.