Two of the three winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry – who were rewarded for revealing the secrets of proteins using artificial intelligence – hope that their research will enable “amazing scientific progress”, good health for people and the development of medicines, but they warned yesterday, Wednesday, against the misuse of artificial intelligence.
Americans David Becker and John Jumper and Briton Demis Hassabis were able to decipher the structures of proteins, as molecules play an essential role in almost all functions of living organisms.
This award “represents the promise of computational biology,” Gamper said during a press conference in London with Demis Hassabis.
Hassabis and Gamber run Google DeepMind, and in 2020 they developed an artificial intelligence model called AlphaFold 2 to determine the structure of proteins.
“We want to make the world a better place, and we have incredibly powerful tools that enable that, and we will eventually be able to make people healthy thanks to the work we are doing with artificial intelligence,” Jumper added.
He hoped that “the award would be a sign” that he and his colleague had succeeded in “opening the way to many aspects of amazing scientific progress.”
As for Hassabis, he explained that their research may contribute significantly to finding medicines, reducing the required work time “from approximately a decade or more to perhaps a few months.”
But Hassabis (48 years old) was keen to warn of the risks associated with artificial intelligence, “one of the most transformative technologies in human history.”
He noted that artificial intelligence has “very great potential for good, but it can also be used for evil.”
He added, “We really have to think carefully as these systems and technologies become more powerful.”
He said, “I believe very much in human ingenuity,” considering that humanity can solve many of its most difficult problems “if there is sufficient time, sufficient capabilities, and a sufficient number of smart people.”