This first of two posts on artificial intelligence tracks a fragment of its promise, as reported in the  August 1 issue of Boston Business Journal. That article is entitled AI for Life.

Starting with Google Deep-Mind’s discovery that a protein’s structure could be deduced from its amino acid sequence, today companies of all sizes are using AI to speed the development of, and reduce the cost of, new drugs. The article notes that at this juncture most companies use AI at the start of the process to identify disease biology and to design new proteins or molecules for testing against that disease.  Combined with advancing automation technologies, industry has sped up average time to propose a preclinical drug to the 12-18 month range, as opposed to prior practice which required two to four years of effort.

Aside from wide AI use by many private companies, the Commonwealth has established facilities in Kendall Square to recruit early-stage biotech entrepreneurs who can utilize its available AI resources.

Finally, the article speculates that while early stage biotech investment has fallen from the 2022 level, biotech /AI driven deals “have started to recover,” noting however that overuse of the AI hook has begun to cause interest fatigue among some VCs.

The promise of this article, a microcosm of AI’s promise in one significant but discrete area, meets its counterpoint in a dire and exhaustive study of it societal and geopolitical risk for which see the next-following post (which is not your by-now-shopworn panicked screed but a serious and textured analysis by the AI Futures Project).