Correspondence |
Featured
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World View |
Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret
First-of-its-kind US bill would address the environmental costs of the technology, but there’s a long way to go.
- Kate Crawford
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News Explainer |
What the EU’s tough AI law means for research and ChatGPT
The EU AI Act is the world’s first major legislation on artificial intelligence and strictly regulates general-purpose models.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News Explainer |
How journals are fighting back against a wave of questionable images
Publishers are deploying AI-based tools to detect suspicious images, but generative AI threatens their efforts.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
Apple Vision Pro: what does it mean for scientists?
The headset opens up possibilities in accessibility and medical research — and raises concerns about human behaviour.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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News |
AI chatbot shows surprising talent for predicting chemical properties and reactions
Researchers lightly tweak ChatGPT-like system to offer chemistry insight.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Career Column |
‘Obviously ChatGPT’ — how reviewers accused me of scientific fraud
A journal reviewer accused Lizzie Wolkovich of using ChatGPT to write a manuscript. She hadn’t — but her paper was rejected anyway.
- E. M. Wolkovich
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News |
First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed
Researchers used artificial intelligence to decipher the text of 2,000-year-old charred papyrus scripts, unveiling musings on music and capers.
- Jo Marchant
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Career Column |
In the AI science boom, beware: your results are only as good as your data
Machine-learning systems are voracious data consumers — but trustworthy results require more vetting both before and after publication.
- Hunter Moseley
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News |
This AI learnt language by seeing the world through a baby’s eyes
A neural network that taught itself to recognize objects using the filmed experiences of a single infant could offer new insights into how humans learn.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Editorial |
How can scientists make the most of the public’s trust in them?
Researchers have a part to play in addressing concerns about government interference in science.
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Outlook |
Tracking down tuberculosis
Improvements in screening and diagnosis could help to eradicate this curable disease.
- Neil Savage
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Correspondence |
Tech developers must respect equitable AI access
- Michał Choraś
- , Marek Pawlicki
- & Aleksandra Pawlicka
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Editorial |
Computers make mistakes and AI will make things worse — the law must recognize that
A tragic scandal at the UK Post Office highlights the need for legal change, especially as organizations embrace artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making.
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News |
Two-faced AI language models learn to hide deception
‘Sleeper agents’ seem benign during testing but behave differently once deployed. And methods to stop them aren’t working.
- Matthew Hutson
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Technology Feature |
Seven technologies to watch in 2024
Advances in artificial intelligence are at the heart of many of this year’s most exciting areas of technological innovation
- Michael Eisenstein
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News |
This robot grows like a vine — and could help navigate disaster zones
Plant-inspired machines could one day prove useful in search-and-rescue scenarios.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
AlphaFold found thousands of possible psychedelics. Will its predictions help drug discovery?
Researchers have doubted how useful the AI protein-structure tool will be in discovering medicines — now they are learning how to deploy it effectively.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
DeepMind AI solves geometry problems at star-student level
Algorithms are now as good at geometry as some of the world’s most mathematically talented school kids.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Correspondence |
Does generative AI help academics to do more or less?
- Richard Watermeyer
- , Donna Lanclos
- & Lawrie Phipps
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Correspondence |
Centres of Excellence in AI for global health equity — a strategic vision for LMICs
- Hossein Akbarialiabad
- & Nelson K. Sewankambo
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News |
Google AI has better bedside manner than human doctors — and makes better diagnoses
Researchers say their artificial-intelligence system could help to democratize medicine.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News |
‘Set it and forget it’: automated lab uses AI and robotics to improve proteins
A self-driving lab system spent half a year engineering enzymes to work at higher temperatures.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
Medical AI falters when assessing patients it hasn’t seen
Physicians rely on algorithms for personalized medicine — but an analysis of schizophrenia trials shows that the tools fail to adapt to new data sets.
- Miryam Naddaf
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Editorial |
There are holes in Europe’s AI Act — and researchers can help to fill them
Scientists have been promised a front-row seat for the formulation of the EU’s proposed AI regulatory structures. They should seize this opportunity to bridge some big gaps.
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News Feature |
The AI–quantum computing mash-up: will it revolutionize science?
Scientists are exploring the potential of quantum machine learning. But whether there are useful applications for the fusion of artificial intelligence and quantum computing is unclear.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
Will superintelligent AI sneak up on us? New study offers reassurance
Improvements in the performance of large language models such as ChatGPT are more predictable than they seem.
- Matthew Hutson
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News & Views |
Large language models direct automated chemistry laboratory
Automation of chemistry research has focused on developing robots to execute jobs. Artificial-intelligence technology has now been used not only to control robots, but also to plan their tasks on the basis of simple human prompts.
- Ana Laura Dias
- & Tiago Rodrigues
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News |
This GPT-powered robot chemist designs reactions and makes drugs — on its own
A system called Coscientist scours the Internet for instructions, then designs and executes experiments to synthesize molecules.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Correspondence |
Should scientists delegate their writing to ChatGPT?
- Christopher Basgier
- & Shyam Sharma
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News |
These scientists aren’t using ChatGPT — here’s why
Some researchers find AI chatbots helpful for writing, coding and gathering information. Others are choosing to avoid the craze.
- Carissa Wong
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News |
The science events to watch for in 2024
Advanced AI tools, Moon missions and ultrafast supercomputers are among the developments set to shape research in the coming year.
- Miryam Naddaf
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News |
DeepMind AI outdoes human mathematicians on unsolved problem
Large language model improves on efforts to solve combinatorics problems inspired by the card game Set.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News Feature |
Nature’s 10: ten people (and one non-human) who helped shape science in 2023
An AI pioneer, an architect of India’s Moon mission and the world’s first global heat officer are some of the people behind this year’s big stories.
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News Feature |
ChatGPT and science: the AI system was a force in 2023 — for good and bad
The poster child for generative AI software is a startling human mimic. It represents a potential new era in research, but brings risks.
- Richard Van Noorden
- & Richard Webb
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News Feature |
OpenAI’s chief scientist helped to create ChatGPT — while worrying about AI safety
Ilya Sutskever has played a key part in developing the conversational AI systems that are starting to change society.
- Nicola Jones
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Correspondence |
Can AI deliver advice that is judgement-free for science policy?
- Stefano Canali
- & Francesco Barone-Adesi
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News |
Robot chemist sparks row with claim it created new materials
Researchers question whether an AI-controlled lab assistant actually made any novel substances.
- Mark Peplow
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Article
| Open AccessCell-type-directed design of synthetic enhancers
Deep learning models were used to design synthetic cell-type-specific enhancers that work in fruit fly brains and human cell lines, an approach that also provides insights into these gene regulatory elements.
- Ibrahim I. Taskiran
- , Katina I. Spanier
- & Stein Aerts
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Article
| Open AccessTargeted design of synthetic enhancers for selected tissues in the Drosophila embryo
Deep learning and transfer learning were used to design tissue-specific enhancers in the Drosophila embryo that were active and specific, validating this approach to achieve tissue-, cell type- and cell state-specific expression control.
- Bernardo P. de Almeida
- , Christoph Schaub
- & Alexander Stark
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News |
‘Biocomputer’ combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware
A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine can recognize voices.
- Lilly Tozer
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Article
| Open AccessOrgan aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease
Blood plasma protein data was combined with machine learning models for a simple method to determine differences in organ-specific aging; the study provides a basis for the prediction of diseases and aging effects using plasma proteomics.
- Hamilton Se-Hwee Oh
- , Jarod Rutledge
- & Tony Wyss-Coray
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News Feature |
Is AI leading to a reproducibility crisis in science?
Scientists worry that ill-informed use of artificial intelligence is driving a deluge of unreliable or useless research.
- Philip Ball
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Comment |
Generative AI could revolutionize health care — but not if control is ceded to big tech
Large language models such as that used by ChatGPT could soon become essential tools for diagnosing and treating patients. To protect people’s privacy and safety, medical professionals, not commercial interests, must drive their development and deployment.
- Augustin Toma
- , Senthujan Senkaiahliyan
- & Bo Wang