Scientists discover first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI

The article (and what I can access of the paper it is based on) doesn't really give any details as to what this class is, how it works etc. All the interesting parts about this aren't mentioned.
- It sounds like they trained a classification model using 39,000 molecules with known reactivity to MRSA. The molecules are vectorized text representations of the structures. Once trained, they can run arbitrary molecules through the model and see which ones are predicted to have antibiotic properties, or at least MRSA reactivity.
  They likely fed in molecules from families of structures that seem likely to contain an antibiotic but are too numerous to manually test them all. They get a prediction of which ones are likely to have the properties they want, and then start the slow process of creating and testing the molecules in the lab.
  
  I get what they did (its been something a lot of groups have been wanting to do for years) but I am curious what molecule specifically they found that worked especially well. i.e What does this thing look like? What is the new antibiotic's mechanism of action? None of those latter details are discussed. Its something we can only guess at.

- But it's going to be. Until we do something to stop them, it's absolutely going to be that way. There's no serious view of human history that will tell you anything different.
  We can't just sit here and marvel at technology without acknowledging who controls it, who uses it, and what they're going to use it for. Without people, AI is just a bunch of code sitting there waiting for input.
- Think of how many more species we can drive to extinction now!
  
  Signing up for contact division now, I can't wait

ai is finding antibiotics for diseases ai hasn't even created yet (I kid, I kid)
- 🫠

- You're right, but We'll get what we deserve when it comes to that.
  The one thing the greedy tech bastardizers have never been able to do is shut down, not for lack of trying, the benevolent open source and human knowledge belongs to the world movements. The seven seas are still free and the most motivated thinkers are still the open source ones, matey.
  They have nothing that isn't already being extrapolated and tinkered with on private servers. If they use the soon to come AGI to make the peasant's lives even more bleak, they might not like the damage in kind that can be done with some militant engineer's homebrew anti-cap AGI. What could that do? Engineer a plague? Mass delete banking records? Who knows but it's increasingly likely we'll find out!
  If wealthy "winner" humans continue to insist on making most humans live's increasingly desperate, solely because they are never getting richer fast enough and without regard to the concept of Mutually assured destruction, then our species will have to experience the inevitable consequences of that choice. They have the capital, so its on them.
- It’s just a movie, relax.
  Staphylococcus kills thousands of people every year, this is a good thing.
  We have PLENTY of negative places you could go here on Lemmy that really really hate all things futurism and technology, please try to save your dooomerism for those places, we just literally don’t have many positive spaces left and it’s so frustrating to come from the good news of the article only to see silly comments like yours that make it seem like we are all going to die because AI found a way to help us.
  
  Sorry, you seem to have lost the thread. We're talking about scary things that happen movies, not current daily real-world issues which could really use our focus but we're to involved in the media.
  Focus on the media, join our ignorant dance.
- Maybe things will work out for the better. Maybe they take over. Worst case scenario I blow my fucking brains out so i don't have to live though the apocalypse.
  I'll roll those dice.
  
  Same!
  Either way, It's main event time and we're both fortunate enough to have tickets! I'll even stay for the apocalypse and see how I do, to a point.
  
  I look at it as the AI we build is humanity's child. It will outgrow us. And we will age out and die.
  On a cosmic scale, an AI can operate in ways humans never could.
  Even if you use the augmented humans path, eventually, all the human will be augmented out of existence until only the AI is left.
- You can't unopen Pandora's Box.
  
  In this case I'm glad. We are close to achieving the technology to let technology self-iterate and propagate.
  The direction our species chooses to apply this technology will be a reflection and measure of who we are with commensurate rewards and/or consequences.
  Will some voices of sanity let us harness the power of this atom to enlighten the world? Or will we follow tradition and use our newfound power to make big boomie boom rival tribe over there, yet again?

Finally a good use of AI, instead of using it to replace artists.
- Yeah but think of all the bacteria it's putting out of work.
- most artists deserve to be replaced
  
  The one uniquely human product in all of the planet’s history? Yeah, ok.

Quick to the beef depository!

First Check if it doesn't make our fingers merge into a stub

Ooo, a new allergy!
- My dad was allergic to practically every antibiotic. He only developed the allergy in his senior years. It was a big problem for him. Even if the antibiotic seemed to be working okay, he had to take a lot of Benadryl just in case and keep an epi pen around.
  
  It’s very common as you hit a second puberty and you’re body is suddenly like ‘nah’.
  It’s like a warranty is up or something.

Can't wait for anti-antibiotics movements! 😅
- Anti-antibiotics... Isn't that just biotics? Like from Mass Effect? IDK, could be cool 👀
  
  Yeah, just like anti-antifa.. 😅
- It would be long overdue. The scientific consensus for vast harms from antibiotics has been strong for many years. https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/
  
  Meh, then I guess it's time to stick with flat earth theory.. :/

This AI thing would be excellent at hide and seek.

Does this AI use the same process for piecing together things as LLMs do for art and writing? Is this a drug we have known about but not yet applied as an antibiotic or a whole new compound?
- It doesn't sound like it but they don't have enough detail in the article to say.
  It sounds likey they are using a classification model that takes a vectorized text representation of molecules and classifies or scores them by their expected properties/reactivity. They took 39,000 molecules with known reactivity to MRSA to train the model, I assume to classify the structures. Once trained they can feed in arbitrary molecules into the trained model and see which ones are predicted to have antibiotic properties, which they can verify with bench work.
  They likely fed in molecules from classes of likely candidate structures, and the model helped focus and direct the wet work.
  I'm not up on the latest, but years ago I helped a similar project using FPGAs running statistical models to direct lab work.
  
  I'd be interested to know why FPGAs were selected for this application. I'm not especially familiar with their use cases.
- llms have progressed beyond cut and paste way more than a year ago. they have shown understanding of what items are and how they behave and interact. I know it's popular here to call it a parrot or whatever but most people don't have access to the high level stuff and most seem afraid/snobby/parroting things themselves.
- Virtual screening libraries are usually some form of expanded chemical space meaning they contain real and previously unknown compounds. The article says the 12 million compounds screened virtually were commercially available, but I couldn't see enough of the nature paper to verify. It could be that the virtual screening set was acquired from a private company, but that doesn't necessarily mean all the compounds are known.

Great. Now don't overuse it again.

I guess all the people solely cheering for this aren't aware of the damage we've been doing to ourselves with antibiotics:
While antibiotic resistance gets all the attention, the damage being done to our host-native microbiomes is arguably as big a threat as climate change, as the damage compounds over generations, and once it's gone you can't get it back. (Apr 2019).
Resistance may already be a solved problem: https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/#fmt-to-counter-antibiotic-resistance
- This is a simplified to the point of absurdity comment. Microbiome is important, but is absolutely not enough to prevent antibiotic resistance.
  
  That is simply wrong. I wonder what gives you the courage to make such boldly false statements?
- Bacterial infections can kill people.
  Don't be stupid
  
  A perfect example of the black and white thinking that has caused so much harm.
  https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/#antibiotics-overuse