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A new golden age of discovery – Seizing the AI for Science opportunity

A quiet revolution is brewing in labs around the world, where scientists’ use of AI is growing exponentially. One in three postdocs now use large language models to help carry out literature reviews, coding, and editing. In October, the creators of our AlphaFold 2 system, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper became Nobel Laureates in Chemistry for using AI to predict the structure of proteins, alongside the scientist David Baker, for his work to design new proteins. Society will soon start to feel these benefits more directly, with drugs and materials designed with the help of AI currently making their way through development.

In this essay, we take a tour of how AI is transforming scientific disciplines from genomics to computer science to weather forecasting. Some scientists are training their own AI models, while others are fine-tuning existing AI models, or using these models’ predictions to accelerate their research. Scientists are using AI as a scientific instrument to help tackle important problems, such as designing proteins that bind more tightly to disease targets, but are also gradually transforming how science itself is practised.

Tool AI > Uncontrollable AGI
Maggie Munro, Future of Life Institute
Today’s newsletter is an 11-minute read. Some of what we cover this month:
🔨 Why we should build Tool AI, not artificial general intelligence
🖼️ A glimpse into a future shaped by superintelligence
🤫 Beta testing opportunity!
🇺🇸 Looking at the role of AI and deepfakes in the U.S. election

State of AI Report 2024 Summary
Michael Spencer< AI Supremacy
We might be stuck in 2023 still in some ways halfway between chatbots and AI agents, and whatever else comes next. Another deep learning plateau or winter is entirely possible. If a lot of the hype was manufactured that doesn’t mean AI and exponential tech won’t be impactful, it just means you cannot fully trust reports from VC firms, social media and PR based channels. A lot of influencers, writers and evangelists become sucked into all of that. It becomes their job to be professional techno-optimists and cherry pick academic papers and ideas that support their growing following.

You’ll Miss The World Order When It’s Gone
Nicholas Grossman, Arc Digital
A dark and all-too-plausible scenario for Trump’s second term, as the United States effectively switches sides from democracy to authoritarianism

The theory here is simple: Trump will do what he has repeatedly promised to do and what he started doing in his first term. He will impose widespread tariffs, undercutting the postwar open trade regime, which disincentivizes conflict by promoting economic interdependence. He will break commitments to democratic allies and cozy up to authoritarians. Defenders of the U.S.-led international order from Trump’s first term, such as Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly won’t be there to slow it down. In their stead will be enablers, including Russia sympathizers. The administration will act without fear of impeachment, legal punishment, or loss of re-election, because Trump already overcame all three.
Read the rest in the Bulwark for free here

It’s Time for the Government to Abolish ‘Race’
Michael Lind, The Free Press
Since 1977, the federal government has sorted Americans into bogus racial categories. Why?

Since 1976, the U.S. Census has been forbidden by law to ask Americans about their religious identity. And yet it is allowed to ask Americans about their racial identity. To make matters worse, instead of relying on self-identification for ethnicity and race, the federal government insists that every American choose an identity from a small set of official “races” approved by. . . the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Don’t Believe That The American Dream Is Dead
Liza Libes, Persuasion
So let’s scrap this notion that America is inherently discriminatory and start teaching younger generations that America really is the land of opportunity. The American Dream is intact in our time, as it was for so many generations before. But in order to seize that opportunity, you do need to recognize it—to start with determination and hope.

Why you should talk to people you disagree with about politics

Rachel Wahl, University of Virginia

Conversations don’t immediately change people’s minds, but they can eventually. And in the meantime, they help forge real connections across a diverse and complex society.

Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power

Scott Davidson, West Virginia University

Despite the controversy surrounding them, presidential pardons can provide a service – the question is how they are used.

hreatening texts targeting minorities after election were vile − but they might not be illegal

Daniel Hall, Miami University

The First Amendment might complicate plans to prosecute the people who sent up to 500,000 anonymous messages in November calling Black people ‘slaves,’ among other hate speech.

Could we motivate American 18-year-olds into military service if we needed them to respond to a national security threat?
Yes
No

Should Joe have pardoned Hunter?
77.73% – Yes
22.27% – No
*Percentage of 39,046 votes

In the past, industry observers and researchers have linked community newspaper closure to diminished civic trust and political participation, among other negative effects. New research from Brad Greenwood, the Maximus Corporate Partner Professor of Business at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, builds on this discourse, finding evidence that when local papers topple, political corruption springs up in their wake.

All told, these findings suggest that community newspapers should not be regarded as just another business model ill-adapted to digital disruption that should be allowed to fail. Their demise comes at significant public cost, financial and otherwise. “In an age of misinformation, the solution is not rejecting the professional press, it is embracing it, and ensuring that well-trained and hard-working men and women have both the ability and venue to hold those in power to account,” Greenwood says.

Rising star Anderson Clayton on how Dems did so well in North Carolina, despite voters there picking Trump for president.

While Democrats are playing the blame game on how Kamala Harris lost the election, Clayton says, “I don’t think anybody’s a lost cause. I actually think after this election cycle, we should be looking at every single person as somebody we’re talking to.”

But it’s not just talking to voters that’s key for Democrats moving forward. “We need to run young people,” Clayton explains. She continues, “They’re 60% more likely to vote for a young person on the ballot regardless of what political party that they’re affiliated with. And I think that we have to look at young people as a voting bloc that wants to see themselves represented.”

Republican senators are prepared to hear out Kash Patel, President-elect Trump’s controversial pick to lead the FBI.

Why it matters: The FBI has become enemy No. 1 among Trump allies because of its role in investigating Trump himself. Patel does not have the typical experience for FBI director and has harshly criticized the agency.

Meet the unqualified, right-wing sycophant who could soon be in charge of America’s top domestic intelligence and law enforcement agency.

On Saturday, Trump announced that he would appoint Kash Patel to be the next director of the FBI, sending “shockwaves through Washington” (technically, there isn’t even a vacancy as the current FBI director Christopher Wray, appointed by Trump in 2017, has three years left to serve on his 10-year term).

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe told CNN he believes Patel’s nomination is part of “a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI, and to possibly use it as a tool for the president’s political agenda.” Former national security adviser John Bolton, who was once Patel’s boss in the Trump White House, even called on the Senate to “reject this nomination 100-0.”

The Sunday morning talk shows are filled with predictable groaning—a chorus of dismay from Democrats and their pundit allies as they denounce President Donald Trump’s appointment of Kash Patel as the next FBI Director. The collective outrage centers around Patel’s promise to “clean house,” to end the weaponization of the FBI and put an end to its penchant for sweeping malfeasance under the rug—to do away, finally, with the coverups that have plagued the Bureau and undermined public trust. The appointment is a shock to the system, and that is precisely what makes Kash Patel the ideal candidate.

The American people deserve an FBI that is not a partisan tool but a professional law enforcement body committed to truth, justice, and the rule of law. Kash Patel, with his unparalleled mix of prosecution, defense, and national security experience, is the right man to bring about that change. His confirmation would signal a new chapter for the Bureau—one that moves beyond the scandals and failures of recent years and recommits to the ideals upon which it was founded. Senate Republicans, it is time to confirm Kash Patel and give the FBI back to the American people.