Anthropic says its biology lab has already found something big
techcrunch ·
Anthropic has announced that its AI model, Claude, identified a new enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA that exhibits properties similar to CRISPR. This discovery was made within Anthropic's newly established wet biology lab in the Bay Area, which utilizes AI to guide physical experiments. The company claims that Claude performed the data analysis in just 21 hours using approximately 950 agents and 210 million tokens. While CEO Dario Amodei acknowledges that Stanford researchers previously found a similar system, he emphasizes that Claude played a central role in this specific finding. Despite the rapid progress, all physical laboratory work is currently conducted by human scientists rather than autonomous robots. This announcement comes amid ongoing industry debates regarding the safety of advanced AI capabilities and potential bioterrorism risks. Amodei maintains that while safety concerns are valid, the potential for AI to cure diseases outweighs the dangers. The company notes that fully automated biological experimentation may be possible in the future with appropriate safeguards.
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