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Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

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Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#81

Post by infamouscow »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #34
dvh wrote: post #4

I've been under the impression that we don't have new antibiotics because it is not economically viable. When you invent new weight loss drug you can sell millions of pills to anyone. If you invent new antibiotic it is immediately classified as "reserve antibiotic" and the sale is restricted.

This is good example of the limits of capitalism.

Can you give any examples of antibiotic discoveries of this caliber happening recently in any economic system besides capitalism?

When making brain-dead claims, at least be fair and compare it to the track record of other economic systems. To do otherwise is shameful.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#82

Post by UncleOxidant »

infamouscow wrote: post #81
UncleOxidant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good example of the limits of capitalism.

Can you give any examples of antibiotic discoveries of this caliber happening recently in any economic system besides capitalism? When making brain-dead claims, at least be fair and compare it to the track record of other economic systems. To do otherwise is shameful.

It may not be recent, but I can give the example of Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin. He did not patent his discovery saying that "nature invented penicillin, I merely discovered it." He wanted it to be as widely available and affordable to everyone who needed it. (Similar for Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine). Fleming discovered penicillin in a government funded academic environment and was not incentivized by money. Maybe that was just more common back during that era (also given the Salk example). Maybe we're at a later stage of capitalism where it's less likely to happen.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#83

Post by heyoni »

fasterik wrote: post #79
UncleOxidant wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research ... Market-driven capitalism without any government incentives (or disincentives) has no answer here. You just proposed something that's not market-driven capitalism. That the government should get involved in some way to fund and incentivize what it deems to be good for society in the long run. The market on it's o…

It's a straw man to define capitalism in such a way that anything involving a government doesn't count as capitalism. Unless they're radical anarcho-capitalists, most people would agree that you need some sort of stable society with laws and regulations for markets to function correctly.

Nothing about your particular solution suggests it should be labeled capitalist, in fact, it would fit well under a number of radically different economic ideologies.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#84

Post by wolverine876 »

hedora wrote: post #75
wolverine876 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media is not one thing. Fair enough, but science journalism is not just one thing. > You've got multiple people in this thread who know the subject, in detail, telling you that the headline is wrong. That appears on every HN discussion of anything. It's not a signal of wrongness or rightness, any more than the color of the banner at the top - if it's orange, the OP must be obviously wrong!

It turns out there’s usually a group of HN commenters that specialize in whatever the topic is and are more qualified to discuss the technical contributions than the person that paraphrased a university press release.

Hmmm ... that is not my experience of it. My experience is that the actual experts' comments are half-way down the page, and in fields I do know about, most of the comments range from amateurish to BS. The omnipresent take-down comments are disputed by the experts, usually. Many of them follow the same formulaic 'take-down' patterns that reflect amateurism and ignorance trying to look smart, such as railing against sample sizes, etc.

Also, your comment is a baseless claim - like the strawperson journalists you rail against - that HN commenters are more informed than the authors. I expect that very few HN commenters are as informed.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#85

Post by marcusverus »

wolverine876 wrote: post #33
marcusverus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. Anyway, how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything? Why let the bugs evolve resistance to one antibiotic at a time, rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? Was this strategy designed by the bad guys in a Jacky Chan movie?

Whatever the theory, the government achieves quite a bit. Look at NASA, as one example, not to mention nuclear energy in all its applications, etc.

SpaceX created a reusable first stage in ~10 years, for less than NASA spends in a single year. In that same time period NASA spent a quarter of a TRILLION dollars… to send out a handful of probes. NASA does interesting things, sure, but nothing that the private sector couldn’t do in half the time for 1/10th the sticker price.

The government may have contributed to the discovery of nuclear power, but for the last 50 years it has been the largest impediment to nuclear power.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#86

Post by marcusverus »

sfilmeyer wrote: post #59
shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway what? You don't win an internet argument by dumping some random quote. If you have some ideas, do share them.

They did share an idea. > rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? It was surrounded by some rudeness and is probably a poor idea (but I'm no expert), but it was an idea.

> some rudeness

It was a joke. Please laugh.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#87

Post by hatenberg »

fasterik wrote: post #79
UncleOxidant wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research ... Market-driven capitalism without any government incentives (or disincentives) has no answer here. You just proposed something that's not market-driven capitalism. That the government should get involved in some way to fund and incentivize what it deems to be good for society in the long run. The market on it's o…

It's a straw man to define capitalism in such a way that anything involving a government doesn't count as capitalism. Unless they're radical anarcho-capitalists, most people would agree that you need some sort of stable society with laws and regulations for markets to function correctly.

so basically Libertarians.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#88

Post by mminer237 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #73
kbelder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but finding new antibiotics then becomes trivial.

Isolating a new antibiotic (even if it wouldn't work on humans) is typically worth a chemistry PhD. Call me when you get it.

Can't you just pick a random chlorite?

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#89

Post by infamouscow »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #82
infamouscow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give any examples of antibiotic discoveries of this caliber happening recently in any economic system besides capitalism? When making brain-dead claims, at least be fair and compare it to the track record of other economic systems. To do otherwise is shameful.

It may not be recent, but I can give the example of Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin. He did not patent his discovery saying that "nature invented penicillin, I merely discovered it." He wanted it to be as widely available and affordable to everyone who needed it. (Similar for Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine). Fleming discovered penicillin in a government funded academic environment and was not incentiviz…

Alexander Fleming and Jonas Salk are akin Atticus Finch, but in real life.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#90

Post by wolverine876 »

marcusverus wrote: post #85
wolverine876 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the theory, the government achieves quite a bit. Look at NASA, as one example, not to mention nuclear energy in all its applications, etc.

SpaceX created a reusable first stage in ~10 years, for less than NASA spends in a single year. In that same time period NASA spent a quarter of a TRILLION dollars… to send out a handful of probes. NASA does interesting things, sure, but nothing that the private sector couldn’t do in half the time for 1/10th the sticker price. The government may have contributed to the discovery of nuclear power, but for the last 50…

> NASA does interesting things, sure, but nothing that the private sector couldn’t do in half the time for 1/10th the sticker price.

The private sector has never done anything like what NASA has accomplished, and NASA is far and away the most successful explorers and engineers in human history. I have no reason to believe anyone else could do it.

Has Space-X left Earth orbit?

> NASA spent a quarter of a TRILLION dollars… to send out a handful of probes

Look at NASA's budget (or any other source) and you'll find they do far, far more.

The all caps, btw, are against HN guidelines. Why have so many started using them this week?

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