Making AI Headlines · Page 6
Antibiotic Researchers Win a Prize, While Their Algorithm Skips the Speech
· New York time
MIT professors Regina Barzilay and Jim Collins have won the Pritzker Prize for AI and Science Research Excellence for their work on AI-enabled antibiotic discovery. The researchers collaborated to identify the first AI-discovered antibiotic, a milestone in the use of AI for drug discovery, according to MIT. The work brings computational tools to a search with major public health stakes. Antibiotic resistance makes the discovery of new candidates important, and finding promising compounds is a step in a much longer scientific process. The prize recognizes the researchers' contribution to that search, not a guarantee that every AI-identified candidate will become a treatment. AI can help researchers explore possibilities at a scale that would be difficult to handle by inspection alone. People still have to design studies, assess results and determine what discoveries mean. The machine can assist the search, but it does not replace the scientific work required to turn a candidate into useful knowledge. At the awards ceremony, the human collaborators get the congratulations and the algorithm remains a tool rather than an honoree. It is a sensible division of credit, even if the software would make an unusually concise acceptance speaker. The scientists did the hard work of giving the search its direction and its meaning.
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