Welcome to Issue #3 of our newsletter. Thanks for being here.

In this edition:

• Does AI Hold The Key To Unlocking Digital Biology?

• Do You Have Situational Awareness When It Comes to AI?

• The DAS Crew’s Top 5 Custom GPT Use Cases

• Chocolate Chicken For Dinner?

We also talk about GPT-5, YouTube’s new Community Notes, and predict what SSI’s new headquarters might look like (Ilya’s new company).

Let’s get to it!

-Andy, Beth, Brian, Eran, Jyunmi, Karl & Robert.

Does AI Hold The Key To Unlocking Digital Biology?

On Tuesday, we talked about how AI is shaking up the world of digital biology. We looked at developments like Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold 3 and OpenAI’s work with Color Health for personalized cancer screening.

The show focused on how AI is helping us analyze huge amounts of biological data, speeding up discoveries in disease treatment and understanding.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Speeding Up Drug Discovery: AI tools like AlphaFold 3 make finding new drugs much faster by predicting protein structures and behaviors. This can take tasks that used to take years and complete them in seconds, which is crucial for developing treatments for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

• Personalized Medical Care: AI can handle vast amounts of data to provide personalized treatment options. OpenAI’s partnership with Color Health, for example, helps create custom cancer screening and treatment plans based on individual patient data.

• More Efficient Research: AI models can make the research process quicker by simulating and analyzing biological data faster, allowing scientists to focus on the most promising leads and reduce the trial-and-error cycle in developing new treatments.

• Revolutionizing Disease Treatment: AI’s ability to handle and interpret complex biological data enables faster and more accurate identification of disease mechanisms, which can lead to the development of more effective treatments.

Do You Have Situational Awareness When It Comes to AI?

On Thursday, we talked about Leopold Aschenbrenner’s paper, Situational Awareness. Leopold, a prodigious talent at just 22, provides a comprehensive look at the future of AI and its societal impacts. His insights cover the rapid advancements in AI, the looming challenges, and the strategic considerations for navigating this evolving landscape.

Our crew talked about how this paper addresses the broader implications of AI growth and what it means for national security, economic power, and technological leadership.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Anticipating Rapid AI Advancements: Leopold highlights that the growth rate of AI capabilities is accelerating, often by 4-5x annually. Understanding this rapid evolution is crucial for businesses and governments to stay ahead in a world where AI will increasingly shape economic and strategic landscapes.

• Preparation for AI Disruption: Businesses should prepare for AI-driven disruption by organizing and securing their data now. This forward-thinking approach will enable companies to leverage AI’s full potential when more advanced models become available, positioning them ahead of competitors who are slower to adapt.

• Strategic AI Integration: Leopold argues for a balanced approach to AI development, where both startups and larger entities play a role. This hybrid model can drive innovation while also providing the oversight needed to manage the broader impacts of AI on society. Businesses should consider this when developing their AI strategies, ensuring they balance innovation with ethical considerations.

• National Security Implications: The paper emphasizes the potential national security risks posed by advanced AI. As AI models become more powerful, their misuse could lead to significant geopolitical instability. Governments need to proactively address these risks through regulations and strategic planning to safeguard against potential threats.

JUST JOKES

Keeping Us Up at Night (Still):
Situational Awareness

“A few years ago, at least for me, I took these ideas seriously—but they were abstract, quarantined in models and probability estimates. Now it feels extremely visceral. I can see it. I can see how AGI will be built.

But the scariest realization is that there is no crack team coming to handle this. As a kid you have this glorified view of the world, that when things get real there are the heroic scientists, the uber-competent military men, the calm leaders who are on it, who will save the day. It is not so. The world is incredibly small; when the facade comes off, it’s usually just a few folks behind the scenes who are the live players, who are desperately trying to keep things from falling apart.”
Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI safety and superalignment researcher.

Our Top 5 Business Use Cases for Custom GPTs

On Monday’s show, we talked about our favorite custom GPTs and use cases. From pre-built solutions to creating our own, each of us have custom GPTs that we use frequently to increase everyday efficiencies in our work.

Here is a breakdown of our top 5’s. Some of these are specific GPTs like Grimoire that you can find in the GPT marketplace, and others are custom built GPTs that the crew have created for their own specific use cases.

Did You Know?

Generative AI can create entirely new recipes, including unique dishes that have never been made or recorded before, demonstrating creativity in culinary arts.

Fact Details:

• Chef Watson by IBM used natural language processing and a vast database of recipes to generate new and unconventional dishes, combining ingredients in innovative ways.

• More recently, tools like GPT-4 can create novel recipes based on ingredient inputs, dietary preferences, or even arbitrary constraints, generating dishes that are not only unique but also palatable and appealing.

Example Case:

AI-Generated “Chocolate Chicken”: Using AI, researchers developed a recipe that creatively combines chocolate and chicken, a pairing not typically seen in traditional cuisines. The AI-generated recipe was actually tested and refined through human feedback to create a surprisingly harmonious dish.

Brian’s Thought to Ponder: 🤔
Did Busta Rhymes foretell AI recipes when he said the famous lines “Chickity Choco, the chocolate chicken” in Scenario by A Tribe Called Quest?

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