While language model (LM)-powered chatbots and generative search engines excel at answering concrete queries, discovering information in the terrain of unknown unknowns remains challenging for users. To emulate the common educational scenario where children/students learn by listening to and participating in conversations of their parents/teachers, we create Collaborative STORM (Co-STORM). Unlike QA systems that require users to ask all the questions, Co-STORM lets users observe and occasionally steer the discourse among several LM agents. The agents ask questions on the user's behalf, allowing the user to discover unknown unknowns serendipitously. To facilitate user interaction, Co-STORM assists users in tracking the discourse by organizing the uncovered information into a dynamic mind map, ultimately generating a comprehensive report as takeaways. For automatic evaluation, we construct the WildSeek dataset by collecting real information-seeking records with user goals. Co-STORM outperforms baseline methods on both discourse trace and report quality. In a further human evaluation, 70% of participants prefer Co-STORM over a search engine, and 78% favor it over a RAG chatbot.

Much of the recent AI hype train has centered around mesmerizing digital content generated from simple prompts, alongside concerns about its ability to decimate the workforce and make malicious propaganda much more convincing. However, some of AI's most promising -- and potentially much less ominous -- work lies in medicine. A new update to Google's AlphaFold software could lead to new disease research and treatment breakthroughs. AlphaFold software, from Google DeepMind and (the also Alphabet-owned) Isomorphic Labs, has already demonstrated that it can predict how proteins fold with shocking accuracy. It's cataloged a staggering 200 million known proteins, and Google says millions of researchers have used previous versions to make discoveries in areas like malaria vaccines, cancer treatment and enzyme designs.

Researchers at Google DeepMind have developed AlphaFold 3, an AI model that can predict the structure of and interactions between biological molecules including proteins, DNA and RNA, and small molecules that could function as drugs. Google DeepMind will make the model available for non-commercial use through AlphaFold server. The landmark innovation, the details of which were published in the journal Nature on May 8, is likely to dramatically accelerate biological research. "It's a big milestone for us today, announcing AlphaFold 3," said Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, at a briefing on May 7 announcing the breakthrough. "Biology is a dynamic system and you have to understand how properties of biology emerge through the interactions between different molecules in the cell. You can think of AlphaFold 3 as our first big step towards that."

We are looking for engineers with various levels of experience - Mid through to Senior, Principal, Staff or equivalent levels. This is an extraordinary opportunity to join a new Alphabet company that will reimagine drug discovery through a computational- and AI-first approach. We are assembling a world-class, multi-disciplinary team who want to drive forward groundbreaking innovations. As one of the first members of this pioneering organisation, you will play a meaningful role in building this team, embodying an inspiring, collaborative and entrepreneurial culture. This early-stage venture is on a mission to accelerate the speed, increase the efficacy and lower the cost of drug discovery.

AI's strength and influence have already been demonstrated. With each passing day, the field of artificial intelligence continues to evolve and improve. Because of the huge potential that it has on the world's most pressing issues, tech corporations and researchers are pouring money into developing new technologies and along with the COVID-19 epidemic approaching its third year, it's no surprise that the biomedical community has remained focused on diagnosing and treating the disease. Let's take a look back at some of the major AI breakthroughs and innovations in medical sciences that made headlines this year as we approach the conclusion of 2021. Using a dataset of text-image pairs, OpenAI developed DALL.E, a 12-billion parameter version of GPT-3 trained to produce images from text descriptions.

AI has, by now, proven its power and impact. The artificial intelligence space is constantly evolving and improving with every passing day. Tech companies and researchers are investing big in bringing out innovations due to the massive potential the impact of AI can hold on the world's biggest problems. As we head towards the end of 2021, let us look back at some of the major AI innovations and incidents that took centre stage this year. OpenAI released DALL·E, a 12-billion parameter version of GPT-3 trained to generate images from text descriptions, using a dataset of text-image pairs.

Silicon Valley giant NVIDIA is teaming up with pharma company AstraZeneca and the University of Florida on new artificial intelligence research projects aimed at boosting drug discovery and patient care. April 21, NVIDIA and AstraZeneca revealed a new drug-discovery model called MegaMoIBART, which is aimed at "reaction prediction, molecular optimization and de novo molecular generation." MegaMoIBART will be deployable on NVIDIA's platform for computational drug discovery, known as Clara Discovery, and will use a new kind of technology called transformer neural networks. This is the new breed of press releases flooding the domain of drug discovery, until recently the field of pure pharma & life sciences companies, medical chemistry procedures and very time-consuming biologic research. I used to discover and develop novel candidate drugs myself.

The most interesting development of the week had nothing to do with Facebook or even Google losing its appeal against a €2.4bn fine from the European commission for abusing its monopoly of search to the detriment of competitors to its shopping service. The bigger deal was that DeepMind, a London-based offshoot of Google (or, to be precise, its holding company, Alphabet) was moving into the pharmaceutical business via a new company called Isomorphic Labs, the goal of which is grandly described as "reimagining the entire drug discovery process from first principles with an AI-first approach". Since they're interested in first principles, let us first clarify that reference to AI. What it means in this context is not anything that is artificially intelligent, but simply machine learning, a technology of which DeepMind is an acknowledged master. AI has become a classic example of Orwellian newspeak adopted by the tech industry to sanitise a data-gobbling, energy-intensive technology that, like most things digital, has both socially useful and dystopian applications.

In the last two decades, Google has changed the way humans create, transfer, operate, and consume data. The effect of Google on human history is immense. And now with advanced tools like Artificial Intelligence at its disposal, the company is on the way to making a deeper impact on the human species. This time, Google's parent company Alphabet has launched a startup with an aim of discovering new drugs using AI. After the success of DeepMind, the company uses AI to predict the 3D structure of a protein directly from its amino acid sequence, Alphabet has launched Isomorphic Laboratories for discovering new drugs using the power of AI. "I'm thrilled to announce the creation of a new Alphabet company -- Isomorphic Labs -- a commercial venture with the mission to reimagine the entire drug discovery process from the ground up with an AI-first approach and, ultimately, to model and understand some of the fundamental mechanisms of life," DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in a statement Even though Hassabis will serve as the CEO for Isomorphic during the initial phase, the two companies will stay separate and collaborate where relevant.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is launching a project in Britain that will use artificial intelligence software to "reimagine" the process of discovering new drugs and medical treatments. Alphabet said the new company, Isomorphic Labs, will expand on research previously conducted by DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence company that Google acquired several years ago. Officials said the venture, which will help scientists analyze data, could lead to cures for some of the most debilitating diseases. "Now the time is right to push this forward at pace, and with the dedicated focus and resources that Isomorphic Labs will bring," CEO Demis Hassabis said in a statement. Hassabis added that the company aims to "reimagine the entire drug discovery process from the ground up," and partner with pharma and medical companies to advance "digital biology."