Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Shifts Bulk of Philanthropy, 'Going All In on AI-Powered Biology' (apnews.com) 32
The Associated Press reports that "For the past decade, Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband Mark Zuckerberg have focused part of their philanthropy on a lofty goal — 'to cure, prevent or manage all disease' — if not in their lifetime, then in their children's."
During that decade they also funded other initiatives (including underprivileged schools and immigration reform), according to the article. But there's a change coming: Now, the billionaire couple is shifting the bulk of their philanthropic resources to Biohub, the pair's science organization, and focusing on using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery. The idea is to develop virtual, AI-based cell models to understand how they work in the human body, study inflammation and use AI to "harness the immune system" for disease detection, prevention and treatment. "I feel like the science work that we've done, the Biohub model in particular, has been the most impactful thing that we have done. So we want to really double down on that. Biohub is going to be the main focus of our philanthropy going forward," Zuckerberg said Wednesday evening at an event at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, California.... Chan and Zuckerberg have pledged 99% of their lifetime wealth — from shares of Meta Platforms, where Zuckerberg is CEO — toward these efforts...
On Thursday, Chan and Zuckerberg also announced that Biohub has hired the team at EvolutionaryScale, an AI research lab that has created large-scale AI systems for the life sciences... Biohub's ambition for the next years and decades is to create virtual cell systems that would not have been possible without recent advances in AI. Similar to how large language models learn from vast databases of digital books, online writings and other media, its researchers and scientists are working toward building virtual systems that serve as digital representations of human physiology on all levels, such as molecular, cellular or genome. As it is open source — free and publicly available — scientists can then conduct virtual experiments on a scale not possible in physical laboratories.
"We will continue the model we've pioneered of bringing together scientists and engineers in our own state-of-the-art labs to build tools that advance the field," according to Thursday's blog post. "We'll then use those tools to generate new data sets for training new biological AI models to create virtual cells and immune systems and engineer our cells to detect and treat disease....
"We have also established the first large-scale GPU cluster for biological research, as well as the largest datasets around human cell types. This collection of resources does not exist anywhere else."
During that decade they also funded other initiatives (including underprivileged schools and immigration reform), according to the article. But there's a change coming: Now, the billionaire couple is shifting the bulk of their philanthropic resources to Biohub, the pair's science organization, and focusing on using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery. The idea is to develop virtual, AI-based cell models to understand how they work in the human body, study inflammation and use AI to "harness the immune system" for disease detection, prevention and treatment. "I feel like the science work that we've done, the Biohub model in particular, has been the most impactful thing that we have done. So we want to really double down on that. Biohub is going to be the main focus of our philanthropy going forward," Zuckerberg said Wednesday evening at an event at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, California.... Chan and Zuckerberg have pledged 99% of their lifetime wealth — from shares of Meta Platforms, where Zuckerberg is CEO — toward these efforts...
On Thursday, Chan and Zuckerberg also announced that Biohub has hired the team at EvolutionaryScale, an AI research lab that has created large-scale AI systems for the life sciences... Biohub's ambition for the next years and decades is to create virtual cell systems that would not have been possible without recent advances in AI. Similar to how large language models learn from vast databases of digital books, online writings and other media, its researchers and scientists are working toward building virtual systems that serve as digital representations of human physiology on all levels, such as molecular, cellular or genome. As it is open source — free and publicly available — scientists can then conduct virtual experiments on a scale not possible in physical laboratories.
"We will continue the model we've pioneered of bringing together scientists and engineers in our own state-of-the-art labs to build tools that advance the field," according to Thursday's blog post. "We'll then use those tools to generate new data sets for training new biological AI models to create virtual cells and immune systems and engineer our cells to detect and treat disease....
"We have also established the first large-scale GPU cluster for biological research, as well as the largest datasets around human cell types. This collection of resources does not exist anywhere else."
Developing AI to research biology is good (Score:5, Funny)
Developing AI to create fake "friends" who try to sell you stuff is bad, really bad
Re:Developing AI to research biology is good (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't trust these billionaires. Musk said if someone explained how he could end hunger for $6 billion, he would do it. He was presented with a credible plan by the United Nations' World Food Program, and quietly forgot about it his promise.
This feels self serving. What are the chances that if they discover some miracle cure for cancer, they charge top dollar for it?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like Elon could do it cheaper and better then. What’s holding him back?
Re: Developing AI to research biology is good (Score:1)
it follows trivially that his ethos promotes starvation as desirable, of course.
the question is whether He is right. and of course He is. He is a trillionaire and we are not to question Them.
any more dumb questions?
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect this figure is wrong based on a quick search that reported global spending for this problem during a a five year span was over $60 billion. In other words the world is already collect
Re: (Score:2)
$6 billion could do a lot to end hunger in many parts of the world. Instead, Musk bought Twitter and turned it into a hellsite, and told people to have more kids.
Re: (Score:3)
The idea to "end hunger" would require massive military action to take over all the places that have hunger and creating dictators who were in line with your goals and would forcefully overcome obstacles to food distribution.
People are really dumb. People often think that just buying enough food for everybody to eat would somehow cause everybody to be able to eat. But insufficient food production is not the main cause. And if there were no other obstacles to hunger, the cheapest food, the oldest food, the l
It's tax evasion, not "research" of "biology" (Score:2)
All the shit these two are doing is either making money off scam, or scams to not pay taxes.
On the upside, they are married to each other.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
IN-Q-TEL, IIRC.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that field of study was all washed up?
Where are we going to put all these people? (Score:4, Interesting)
Once we've cured all disease (and aging is a disease, yes?)
Asking for a friend.
what could possibly go wrong when ai hallucinates (Score:2)
funded by the scam trade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice that they are looking to reduce diseases but a lot of the money apparently came from hosting scams, as described in this article just a few lines down;
"Internal documents have revealed that Meta has projected it earns billions from ignoring scam ads that its platforms then targeted to users most likely to click on them"
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
the Zuckerbergs have reached that age where extremely rich people start desperately looking for ways to extend their own lifespans.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think he is so hell bent on creating a virtual world?
Let's see if I have this straight (Score:3)
Going forward, their charitable "donations" are all going to a company they themselves own.
How is this different than George Costanza's Christmas gifts of "Donations to the Human Fund"?
Money for People, indeed.
Clueless about science (Score:2)
I thought it was bootleg schools (Score:2)
Pick a lane
zuck is desperate to cover up terrible behavior (Score:2)