Google Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Sequence

Today, a teaspoon of spit and a hundred bucks is all you need to get a snapshot of your DNA. It's exactly the kind of problem that makes sense to outsource to artificial intelligence. On Monday, Google released a tool called DeepVariant that uses deep learning--the machine learning technique that now dominates AI--to identify all the mutations that an individual inherits from their parents.1 Modeled loosely on the networks of neurons in the human brain, these massive mathematical models have learned how to do things like identify faces posted to your Facebook news feed, transcribe your inane requests to Siri, and even fight internet trolls. And now, engineers at Google Brain and Verily (Alphabet's life sciences spin-off) have taught one to take raw sequencing data and line up the billions of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs that make you you. And oh yeah, it's more accurate than all the existing methods out there.