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AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

deepmind.google

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Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#111

Post by throwaway422432 »

bitpush wrote: post #32
modeless wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Ballmer, he was set up for success by his predecessor(s), and didn't derail strong growth in existing businesses but made huge fumbles elsewhere. The question is, who is Google's Satya Nadella? Demis?

Since we're on the topic of Microsoft, I'm sure you'd agree that Satya has done a phenomenal job. If you look objectively, what is Satya's accomplishments? One word - Azure. Azure is #2, behind AWS because Satya's effective and strategic decisions. But that's it. The "vibes" for Microsoft has changed, but MS hasnt innovated at all. Satya looked like a genius last year with OpenAI partnership, but it is becoming incre…

His genius is really just making good bets on people, and letting them do their thing.

People like Scott Guthrie who was a key person behind dot.net, and went on to be the driving force behind Azure. Anyone who did any dot.net work 10+ years ago would know the ScottGu blog and his red shirt.

Google similarly bet on Demis, and the results also show. For someone who got his start doing level design on Syndicate (still one of my all-time favourite games) he's come a long way.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#112

Post by t_serpico »

RivieraKid wrote: post #74

I wish there's some breakthrough in cell simulation that would allow us to create simulations that are similarly useful to molecular dynamics but feasible on modern supercomputers. Not being able to see what's happening inside cells seems like the main blocker to biological research.

'Seeing' inside cells/tissues/organs/organisms is pretty much most modern biological research.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#113

Post by plemer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #47
coderatlarge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s a lot to expect of readers… good writing needs to give readers every opportunity to find the good in it.

It is a lot to expect of readers... It's also explicitly asked of us in this forum. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

fair point

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#115

Post by semiinfinitely »

dekhn wrote: post #2

When I went to work at Google in 2008 I immediately advocated for spending significant resources on the biological sciences (this was well before DM started working on biology). I reasoned that Google had the data mangling and ML capabilities required to demonstrate world-leading results (and hopefully guide the way so other biologists could reproduce their techniques). We made some progress- we used exacycle to demo…

Nice wow 20% of the credit goes to you for thinking of this years ago. Kudos

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#116

Post by twothreeone »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #110

You know the corporate screws are coming down hard, when the model (which can be run off a single A100) doesn't get a code release or a weight release, but instead sits behind an API, and the authors say fuck it and copy-paste the entirety of the model code in pseudocode on page 31 of the white paper. Please Google/Demis/Sergei, just release the darn weights. This thing ain't gonna be curing cancer sitting behind an…

The bean counters rule. There is no corporate vision, no long-term plan. The numbers for the next quarter are driving everything.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#117

Post by bglazer »

RivieraKid wrote: post #74

I wish there's some breakthrough in cell simulation that would allow us to create simulations that are similarly useful to molecular dynamics but feasible on modern supercomputers. Not being able to see what's happening inside cells seems like the main blocker to biological research.

Molecular dynamics describes very short, very small dynamics, like on the scale of nanoseconds and angstroms (.1nm)

What you’re describing is more like whole cell simulation. Whole cells are thousands of times larger than a protein and cellular processes can take days to finish. Cells contain millions of individual proteins.

So that means that we just can’t simulate all the individual proteins, it’s way too costly and might permanently remain that way.

The problem is that biology is insanely tightly coupled across scales. Cancer is the prototypical example. A single mutated letter in DNA in a single cell can cause a tumor that kills a blue whale. And it works the other way too. Big changes like changing your diet gets funneled down to epigenetic molecular changes to your DNA.

Basically, we have to at least consider molecular detail when simulating things as large as a whole cell. With machine learning tools and enough data we can learn some common patterns, but I think both physical and machine learned models are always going to smooth over interesting emergent behavior.

Also you’re absolutely correct about not being able to “see” inside cells. But, the models can only really see as far as the data lets them. So better microscopes and sequencing methods are going to drive better models as much as (or more than) better algorithms or more GPUs.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#118

Post by com2kid »

modeless wrote: post #88
com2kid wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People now days don't understand how genius MS was in the 90s. Their strategy and execution was insanely good, and I doubt we'll ever see anything so comprehensive ever again. 1. Clear mission statement: A PC in very house. 2. A nationwide training + certification program for software engineers and system admins across all of Microsoft's tooling 3. Programming lessons in schools and community centers across the count…

> the Windows CE kernel team was less than a dozen people! It showed CE was a dog and probably a big part of the reason Windows Phone failed. Migrating off of it was a huge distraction and prevented the app platform from being good for a long time. I was at Microsoft and worked on Silverlight for a bit back then.

Windows phone 7's kernel was amazing. It was a complete rewrite from the old kernel and had incredible performance, minimal resource usage, and an amazing power profile.

IMHO the reason for Microsoft's failed phone venture was moving onto the windows kernel and 2xing system requirements.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#119

Post by com2kid »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #85
com2kid wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People now days don't understand how genius MS was in the 90s. Their strategy and execution was insanely good, and I doubt we'll ever see anything so comprehensive ever again. 1. Clear mission statement: A PC in very house. 2. A nationwide training + certification program for software engineers and system admins across all of Microsoft's tooling 3. Programming lessons in schools and community centers across the count…

> some of the best documentation that has ever existed. You have got to be kidding. The 90s was my heyday, and Microsoft documentation was extravagantly unhelpful, always.

Compared to today's documentation it is amazing.

One of my internships was at a company writing an example app for SQL server offline replication. Taking a DB that had changed while offline and syncing them to a master DB when reconnection happened. (Back in 2004 or so, now days this is an easier thing).

The company I interned at was hired by MSFT to write a sample app for Fabrikam Fine Furniture that did the following:

1. Sales people on the floor could draw a floorplan on a tablet PC of a desired sectional couch layout and the pieces would be identified and the order automatically made up .

2. Customer enters their delivery info on the tablet.

3. DB replicated down to the delivery driver's tablet PC when the driver next pulls into the loading bay with all the order info.

4. After the delivery is finished and signed for on the tablet PC, the customer's signature is digitally signed so it cannot be tampered with later.

5. When the delivery truck pulls back into the depot, SQL server replication happens again, syncing state changes from the driver back to the master DB.

That is an insane sample app, just one of countless thousands that Microsoft shipped out. Compare that to the bare bones hello world samples you get now days.

Re: AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

#120

Post by sidibe »

jebarker wrote: post #98
daveguy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they are a Google organization. Being backed by a $2T company gives you more benefits than just marketing.

Money and resources are only a partial explanation. There’s some equally and more valuable companies that aren’t having nearly as much success in applied AI.

There are more valuable companies but there aren't companies with more resources. If apple wanted to turn all their cash pile into something like Google's infrastructure it would still take years
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