Although genetic engineers have ways to direct the evolution of molecules in the laboratory, they can generally test only a limited number of possibilities. And even a protein of typical length can be modified in almost infinite ways (since it is made up of hundreds of amino acids and each acid comes in 20 possible varieties).
However, OpenAI’s model often suggests that a third of the amino acids in proteins have been changed.
OPENING
“We immediately ran this model in the lab and saw real results,” says Joe Betts-Lacroix, CEO of Retro. He says the model’s ideas were exceptionally good, leading to improvements over the original Yamanaka factors in a substantial fraction of cases.
Vadim Gladyshev, an aging researcher at Harvard University who consults with Retro, says better ways to make stem cells are needed. “For us, it would be extremely useful. (Skin cells) are easy to reprogram, but other cells are not,” he says. “And doing it with a new species is often extremely different, and you get nothing.”
Exactly how GPT-4b arrives at its assumptions is still unclear:as is often the case with AI models. “It’s like when AlphaGo crushed the best human in Go, but it took a long time to find out why,” says Betts-Lacroix. “We’re still figuring out what that does, and we think the way we’re applying it is just scratching the surface.”
OpenAI claims that no money changed hands as part of the collaboration. But because the work could benefit Retro, whose biggest investor is Altman, the announcement could add to the questions swirling around the OpenAI CEO’s side projects.
Last year, THE The Wall Street Journal said Altman’s large-scale investments in private tech startups constitute an “opaque investment empire” that “creates a growing list of potential conflicts” since some of these companies also do business with OpenAI.
In Retro’s case, simply being associated with Altman, OpenAI and the AGI race could boost its profile and increase its ability to hire staff and raise money. Betts-Lacroix did not respond to questions about whether the startup is currently in fundraising mode.
OpenAI claims that Altman was not directly involved in the work and that it never makes decisions based on Altman’s other investments.