29 August

While social media life has delivered another victory for Pauline Trump, this time in WA, have a look at what AI is doing for scientific research. Google has developed an AI system called Co-Scientist, that dramatically accelerates ‘closed-loop’ research programs to find novel solutions to problems. A closed-loop approach means a system that uses feedback to self-regulate, adjust, and correct its own performance automatically, dramatically accelerating progress. Co-Scientist is made up of a collection of AI agents that automatically generate ideas from a vast literature that no human could ever read. It then automatically tests those ideas by simulating a vast scientific debate between rival ideas, again which no humans could ever organise. The winning ideas are then further tested using the closed-loop continuous feedback loops, and presented to scientists. And make no mistake here, those who say AI doesn’t think - this system has already generated novel ideas that are being implemented, ideas no human could have come up with. I firmly believe only AI can save the world. From social media. That’s the front-line battle of our time. The only other option is total catastrophic collapse of civilisations, leading to vast suffering and death, before any renewal can come. (History’s usual method.)