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Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

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Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#91

Post by fasterik »

heyoni wrote: post #83
fasterik wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it involves private ownership, profit, and pricing through competitive markets, then it's capitalist. Everything I mentioned is already done under the current capitalist system. A few examples of non-capitalist solutions would be nationalization of drug production, enforced worker's collectives, and price controls. I don't think these are good alternatives, given their historical track record.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#93

Post by scotty79 »

WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #66
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.

> If you invent new antibiotic it is immediately classified as "reserve antibiotic" and the sale is restricted. Are there examples of this? I've heard people say this happens, but I've never heard a concrete example. I googled 'reserve antibiotic' and found Ceftobiprole, and see it's for sale for $40,000/gram, so clearly it's possible to charge money for a 'reserve'.

That's probably the only good reason to allow exorbitant prices for this specific kind of medicine. To keep it in reserve while keeping pharma companies incentivised.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#94

Post by scotty79 »

marcusverus wrote: post #30
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires a socialized solution: to fund it for future needs rather than for profits.

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?

We are routinely trusting completely random commercial entities that have overtly misaligned incentives (make money). Government monopolies in modern democracies are orders of magnitude safer.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#95

Post by marcusverus »

wolverine876 wrote: post #90
marcusverus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doll…

> The private sector has never done anything like what NASA has accomplished

Nonsense. NASA spent 50 years using disposable lift vehicles. Only the government could bring itself to create single-use articles that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. SpaceX has fixed this by building the Falcon 9, which is not only reusable, it has the highest success rate of any orbital rocket in human history. They're not only "doing something like what NASA has accomplished", they are objectively doing it better and far, far cheaper.

> 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.

No belief necessary. SpaceX has already done it.

> Has Space-X left Earth orbit?

Yes.

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

My point wasn't that they didn't do a bunch of stuff, but rather that they didn't do enough to justify their $0.25 Trillion per-decade budget.

> The all caps, btw, are against HN guidelines.

Ah, I see that in the guidelines. I'll avoid them in the future, thanks!

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#96

Post by wolverine876 »

marcusverus wrote: post #95
wolverine876 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 doll…

> The private sector has never done anything like what NASA has accomplished Nonsense. NASA spent 50 years using disposable lift vehicles. Only the government could bring itself to create single-use articles that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. SpaceX has fixed this by building the Falcon 9, which is not only reusable, it has the highest success rate of any orbital rocket in human history. They're not only "doi…

NASA has done so much more than lift vehicles. To focus only on that doesn't address the question.

What exploration and engineering has SpaceX done to match NASA (except in one narrow area). NASA has a telescope at L2 looking back over 13 billion years, a helicopter flying on Mars, it has left the Solar System, it has satellites and probes all over orbit and other planets.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#97

Post by marcusverus »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #36
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?

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. If only the world were as simple. But it isn't, and everyone knows that those with power (in general, governments) will never be regulated effectively enough for everyone - but that doesn't make them never to be trusted with monopoly, nor does it mean that the government's monopoly is bad. Sorry, I don't really want private militaries nor…

> Sorry, I don't really want private militaries nor private tax collection.

You can't have a government without a military or taxes, so it makes sense that government handles those things. They are requirements for the existence of government, and can't be delegated without existential risk. Medical research is not a core government function.

> I'm happy the government runs things like IDs and drivers licenses.

You'd probably be happier if you weren't required by law to get a license in the first place.

> In fact, various department of motor vehicles (or whatever your local thing is called) is an excellent example of how a monopoly can be a good or bad experience. I'm originally from Indiana and the motor vehicle folks are great there and the service is easy to use - by design - but it isn't like that everywhere in the US. This has nothing really to do with how "effective" their regulation is.

"Sometimes governments can handle basic services" doesn't strike me as a great argument for entrusting the government with complicated, vital services.

> I'm not sure actual monopolies are better - are you really satisfied with your electricity provider or ISP?

The alternative to government monopoly on the development of antibiotics isn't a private monopoly, it's no monopoly, and ideally without regulations which destroy the market incentives to develop antibiotics.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#98

Post by Log_out_ »

ac2u wrote: post #6
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.

>it is immediately classified as "reserve antibiotic" and the sale is restricted. Is that so medical professionals can break it out as a means of last resort to save a patient and ensure the course is finished? If so that mightn't be a bad idea before we destroy the potential of new antibiotics too by having the general public misuse them render them useless over time.

Restricted? As in used by vetrinarys and cure for all in the poorer parts of the world? Also good if there is something to stop hospital bacteria eating patients in slices. Wish we had a wheel of antibiotics, were resistance makes the bacteria vulnerable to something on the opposite of the wheel.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#99

Post by Log_out_ »

RiDiracTid wrote: post #32
schneems wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I extremely know nothing about this field. Would a naive approach would to have a coordinated “crop rotation” type tactic where all hospitals switched to a primary antibiotic every C years/months do anything?

Empirically, many bacteria seem to be able to acquire resistance in a way that doesn't significantly impact their fitness, meaning they can basically get new resistances and keep old ones for almost arbitrarily long, so the crop rotation idea would fail massively. https://academic.oup.com/femsre/article/35/5/901/2680377

It has costs. Replication gets more expensive and slower, more error prone. Also bacteria exchanges resistance DNA among itself. Would be a cool vector to give them weekness.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#100

Post by rambambram »

graypegg wrote: post #61
rambambram wrote: post #10

What is AI? I've only heard of LLM.

I don't think you should be seemingly in the negatives for this comment. :( It's a totally valid question, and the whole industry has introduced so many new words, acronyms and private definitions. It feels unfair to punish someone for not following them all. AI is "artificial intelligence". That's a pretty intentionally vague term. It doesn't imply any specific technological implementation, but it does imply the dev…

Thanks, you seem to get it. ;) My remarks were partly in jest, because I get a little sick of all these definitions. They seem to be used on purpose to make people believe or doubt anything, and that works because these words are so elusive. As programmers - I think most people here - we all know that naming is very important.

I don't want to be too rigid and I also like to play with names, but the use of the word AI is getting out of hand and laypeople and professionals alike are believing stuff that these programs are not (yet) capable of doing.

This started for me some 10 or 15 years ago with the word 'cloud'. I was out of the field for some time and had a hard time understanding what the 'cloud' was. The word 'smartphone' also comes to mind, although this one is less elusive.

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