Here is a selection of recent headlines on artificial intelligence, chosen more or less randomly:
For some recent graduates, the AI work apocalypse can already be here
Artificial intelligence threatens to assault the water reserves of the driest regions in Europe
Top ai CEO Prevent Bloodbath White collar
Okay, not exactly at random, I looked for more owners of Doomy Sounding. But they keep it hard to find. This is because numerous studies indicate that the negative or framed coverage of fear of AI in the main media tends to overcome positive frames.
And to be clear, there are good reasons for that! From misinformation to cybercravia, autonomous weapons and the massive loss of employment to the real extreme of the world (shameless plug of my book here), there are many things that could very, very bad with AI.
But as in many other areas, the emphasis on the negative in artificial intelligence runs the risk of eclipssing what could go well, both in the future as this technology continues to develop and at this time. As a corrective (and perhaps only to congratulate our potential future robot lords), here is a summary of a way in which the AI is already making a positive difference in three important fields.
Every time someone asks me about an unquestionable good Use of AI, I point out one thing: Alfafold. After all, how many other AI models have won their creators a real Nobel Prize?
Alpafold, developed by the company of the property of Google Deepmind, is an AI model that predicts 3D protein structures based only on its amino acid sequences. That is important because scientists need to predict the shape of the protein so that they improve how it could work and how it could be used in products such as medications.
That is known as the “protein folding problem”, and it was a problem because while human researchers loop In all, discover the structure of a protein, would take or take labor issues in the laboratory to do so. Alpafold, through automatic learning methods that I could not explain if I tried, you can make predictions in just five seconds, with precision that is almost such good standard experimental methods.
By accelerating a basic part of biomedical research, Alpafold has already managed to significantly accelerate drug development in everything, from Huntington’s disease to antibiotic resistance. And Google Deepmind’s decision last year of Open Source Alphafold3, its most advanced model, for non -commercial academic use, has largely expanded the number of researchers who can take advantage of it.
You would know it when you see medical dramas like The PittBut doctors spend a long time doing paperwork, two hours for every hour they spend with a patient, for a position. Finding a way to cut that time could free doctors to do real medicines and help express the problem of exhaustion.
That’s where AI is already making a difference. As reported by the Wall Street Journal this week, medical care systems throughout the country are using “artificial intelligence scribes” that automatically capture medical-patient discussions, update medical records and, in general, be autonors as possible. In a pilot study that uses Microsoft’s scribes and a startup called Abridge, doctors reduced the daily documentation time of 90 minutes less than 30 minutes.
Not only doctors free of environmental listening products of much of the need to make manual notes, but can connect new data from a medical-patient interaction with existing medical records and guarantee connections and ideas about Dangen the cracks. “I see that it is able to provide information about the patient that the human mind simply cannot do at a reasonable time,” Dr. Lance Owens, regional medical information director at Michigan Health University, told The Journal.
A timely warning about a natural disaster can mean the difference between life and death, especially in poor countries already vulnerable. That is why Google Flood Hub is so important.
An early river flood alert system driven by AI, driven, provides seven -day flood forecasts for 700 million people in 100 countries. It works when married with a global hydrology model that can forecast river levels in basins that lack physical flood meters with a flooded model that converts predicted levels into high -resolution flood maps. This allows villagers to see exactly which roads or fields can end underwater.
Flood Hub, in my opinion, is one of the clearest examples of how AI can be used for good for those who need it most. He thought that many rich countries such as the United States are included in the flood center, mostly have infrastructure to forecast the effects of extreme climate. (Unless, or of course, we cut everything from the budget). But many poor countries lack these capacities. The ability to drastically reduce labor and the cost of such forecasts has allowed us to extend those capabilities to save lives to those who need it most.
One more great thing: the NGO Giveirectly, which provides direct payments in cash to the global poor, has experienced with the use of flood warnings to send to families hundreds of dollars in days of cash aid porch An expected flood to help prepare for the sausage. As the threat of extreme climate grows, thanks to climate change and population movement, this is the son of avant -garde philanthropy.
Just what seems to be the best applications for AI can come with their inconveniences. The same type of AI technology that allows Alpafold to help accelerate the development of drugs could be used someday to design more quickly Biowapons. The scribes of AI in Medicine ask questions about the patient’s confidentiality and the risk of piracy. And although it is difficult to find failures in an AI system that can help warn people about natural disasters, the lack of internet access in the poorest countries can limit the value of those warnings, and there is not much AI to change that.
But with the holders around the AI inclined so apocalyptic, it is easy to ignore the tangible benefits that the AI already offers. Ultimately, AI is a tool. A powerful tool, but a tool anyway. And like any tool, what will do, bad and well, it will be determined by how we use it.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News Bulletin. Register here!
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