Professor predicts eradication of all diseases within a decade thanks to AI
A bold forecast, an inside look at the White House’s approach to AI under Biden, a new voice startup turning heads, and more
A predicted eradication of all diseases within a decade, a glimpse into the White House’s AI strategy under the Biden administration, and a new voice system causing a stir, it has been yet another interesting week in AI.
Let’s get to it.
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Number of the Week
92%. The share of undergraduates at British universities who’ve used generative AI in the last 12 months, based on a survey of 1,000 students. In 2024, the number was 66%. [Source]
Professor praises Google’s new “AI co-scientist“ system: Cancer cure within ten years?
The recently announced “AI co-scientist” tool from Google is really something.
At least according to Derya Unutmaz, a professor in immunology at The Jackson Laboratory, who reportedly has seen a new demo of the system.
The Turkish-born researcher with articles published in publications like Nature and Science wrote on X this Saturday about seeing a new AI model that he couldn’t talk about publicly in detail yet, but concluding:
“I can confidently claim that the scientific process will never be the same again! I’m now 99% certain that all diseases including cancer will be cured within a decade!,” he wrote, giving credit to exponential advances in AI.
He since revealed that the “mind-blowing AI model” was the Google system which he notes is still a work in progress that he hopes to test in a few weeks.
“But its potential is already crystal clear & I believe it truly will be a game changer for scientific progress!”
What is it?
AI co-scientist is a virtual scientific collaborator built to “help scientists generate novel hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the clock speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries,” Google writes.
The system contains six AI agent systems specialized for hypothesis generation, reflection, prioritizing, and more, inspired by the scientific method itself.
The human specifies a research goal to the system, which then returns a research plan with a list of ideas.
To assess the practical utility of the AI co-scientist, Google evaluated laboratory experiments probing its outputs in real-world use cases. Among the results were the discovery that an existing drug could be used for treatment in a new area, acute myeloid leukemia.
Biden’s special adviser on AI: We were preparing for ‘extraordinarily capable’ systems
Ben Buchanan served as Joe Biden’s special adviser on AI from 2023 to 2025, and in a new interview, he shares some insights and perspectives from the White House. Specifically about what he calls ‘extraordinarily capable’ systems, what others might call AGI — Artificial General Intelligence.
“What we tried to do under President Biden’s leadership was get the U.S. government and our society ready for these systems,” Buchanan says, talking about systems with the capability of replacing human beings in cognitively demanding jobs or key parts of those.
Whereas the US previously had a significant lead in AI, China is catching up, with DeepSeek being a prominent example. Buchanan thinks it is fundamental to US national security that the country continues to be in the lead, underscoring his point with a quote from John F. Kennedy during the space race.
“Space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own,” the former president said in a 1962 speech at Rice University, adding. “And only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.”
New voice AI causes a stir
Sesame is the name of a new startup aiming to create more natural AI voice technology (and a pair of glasses to integrate it in), and judging from the early reactions to their publicly available demo, they are on to something.
Users report after having tried out the two demo voices, Maya and Miles:
“I can totally feel how one can get attached to a voice like this. I have been speaking to it for the past 30 mins and am afraid to stop it because I now have a bond with it,” one X user writes.
“It’s with this thing that people will seriously become friends with AI and have AI girlfriends,” a user on Reddit writes drawing a parallel to the 2013 sci-fi romance movie Her.
But of course there are also critics, specifically around the model’s tendency to keep pushing the conversation forward if the user doesn’t respond immediately.
“They’d be the most annoying person in real life. Chill a little.“
Image of the Week
“Dating apps are doomed”
(Credit: u/eternviking)
Exciting news out there?
The system is, reportedly, not intended to replace the human experts in heart and blood vessel diseases, but should work as a co-pilot helping overburdened doctors.
“With the help [of AI], our doctors can serve more patients, reduce the overall workload, and improve the quality of diagnosis and treatment,” Ge Junbo, leading cardiologist at Shanghai’s Zhongshan Hospital, told Yicai Global News.
Feedback?
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