🧬 People are freaking out about AI. Will we do any better with the (AI-powered) Biotech Revolution?

Get ready for a new front in the culture wars

Quote of the Issue

“A downwinger is someone who stands athwart the Kondratiev Wave yelling ‘Stop!’" - Alex Trembath

---

The Essay

🧬 People are freaking out about AI. Will we do any better with the (AI-powered) Biotech Revolution?

Item: A biotech company backed by Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group and private equity giant Warburg Pincus has begun one of the first mid-stage human trials of a drug discovered and designed by artificial intelligence. Insilico Medicine, which was founded by Latvian-born scientist Alex Zhavoronkov, said it had dosed a patient in China with a novel therapy to treat the chronic lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The company said the drug, INS018_055, was the first entirely “AI-discovered and AI designed” drug to begin a phase 2 clinical trial and represented an important milestone for the industry. “For Insilico, it is the moment of truth . . . but it is also a true test for AI and the entire industry should be watching,” said Zhavoronkov in an interview. “Our company, and it’s a big, bold claim, can double the productivity of pretty much every big pharma company”. - “Biotech begins human trials of drug designed by artificial intelligence,” Financial Times (June 26, 2023)

Generative artificial intelligence looks like it could be the Next Big Thing, an emerging technology with broad economic and societal impacts. A general-purpose technology. And as exciting as GenAI is already proving to be, there’s good reason to think it’s only one of several Next Big Things starting to really percolate.