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News already corrected. "Google Co-Scientist AI cracks superbug problem in two days! — because it had been fed the team’s previous paper with the answer in it"

News already corrected. "Google Co-Scientist AI cracks superbug problem in two days! — because it had been fed the team’s previous paper with the answer in it" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43162582#43163722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43162582#43163722 Let's see how many points gets the correction. It would be good that achieved the same or more visibility than this one to keep HN informative and truthful.

rybthrow2 2y ago
What about the other two use cases it came up repurposing existing drugs and identifying novel treatment targets for liver fibrosis as per the paper? https://research.google/blog/accelerating-scientific-breakthroughs-with-an-ai-co-scientist/ https://research.google/blog/accelerating-scientific-breakth...
- colingauvin 2y ago
  This article claims only 3 of the new materials were actually snythesizable (and all had been previously known of), and that the drug for liver fibrosis had already been investigated for liver fibrosis. https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/02/22/google-co-scientist-ai-cracks-superbug-problem-in-two-days-because-it-had-been-fed-the-teams-previous-paper-with-the-answer-in-it/ https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/02/22/google-co-scientist-ai-cr...
  - rybthrow2 2y ago
    The snythesizable materials is another paper by deepmind not relying on LLMs and unrelated to this one. The article's author briefly mentions one of the other two findings without providing any sources to support the claim that they aren’t novel/useful? If it helps scientists find answers faster, I don’t see the problem—especially when the alternative is sifting through Google or endless research papers.
basisword 2y ago
When I first read this a few days ago the scientists explicitly stated that they hadn't published their results yet. Have they changed their story? From the BBC article on it: "He told the BBC of his shock when he found what it had done, given his research was not published so could not have been found by the AI system in the public domain." Also: Prof Penadés' said the tool had in fact done more than successfully replicating his research. "It's not just that the top hypothesis they provide was the right one," he said. "It's that they provide another four, and all of them made sense. "And for one of them, we never thought about it, and we're now working on that."
- knowitnone 2y ago
  "could not have been found by the AI system in the public domain." could he have been working in the cloud that exposed his unpublished paper to AI?
- kedean 2y ago
  They hadn't published the latest paper, but the many papers leading up to this were published, and so its able to work off of those. I'm not an expert in this field, but in this case, it seems they had already published a paper that listed this idea as an option and dismissed it, so in all likelihood Co-Scientist simply ignored the theoretical limitation. Either way, the headline is garbage. It's like being amazed that your coworker who you've documented every step in your process to managed to solve that problem before you. "I've been working on it for months and they solved it in a day!" is obviously false, they have all of the information and conclusions you've been producing while you worked on it. In this case, telling the coworker every detail is the non-consensual AI training process.
  - pockmarked19 2y ago
    Yes, but it’s the same level of garbage as “Facebook was built in a week”, where the hidden part is “after The Harvard Connection spent two years iterating on the product and got everything stolen”. Society and people in general don’t want to hear these “sour grape” gripes. Unless they are the ones affected adversely.
bilekas 2y ago
It's clear after you read the article but that title is really typical these days. It's frustrating as heck but I will admit, it made me click on the link to see what it was all about. Still super impressed all the same.
ipsum2 2y ago
That's not exactly right. The answer was not explicitly given, according to the source: "However, the team did publish a paper in 2023 – which was fed to the system – about how this family of mobile genetic elements “steals bacteriophage tails to spread in nature”. At the time, the researchers thought the elements were limited to acquiring tails from phages infecting the same cell. Only later did they discover the elements can pick up tails floating around outside cells, too. So one explanation for how the AI co-scientist came up with the right answer is that it missed the apparent limitation that stopped the humans getting it. What is clear is that it was fed everything it needed to find the answer, rather than coming up with an entirely new idea. “Everything was already published, but in different bits,” says Penadés. “The system was able to put everything together.”" https://www.newscientist.com/article/2469072-can-googles-new-research-assistant-ai-give-scientists-superpowers/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2469072-can-googles-new...
- letitgo12345 2y ago
  Or the humans did think of it and were actively proceeding to test that hypothesis
- slashdev 2y ago
  Sometimes science isn’t doing completely novel things, but combining ideas across different disciplines or areas. AI has some potential here, because unlike a human, AI can be trained across all of it and has the opportunity to make connections a human, with more limited scope, might miss.
  - Borealid 2y ago
    What matters isn't that an AI "make connections", it's that the AI generates some text that causes a human to make the connections. It doesn't even matter if what the AI generates is true or not, if it leads the human to truth. In this particular example it wasn't useful because the reader already knew the answer and was fishing for it with the LLM. But generally using an LLM as a creativity-inducer (a brainstorming tool) is fine, and IMO a better idea than trying to use them as an oracle.
bawolff 2y ago
The moment i read the headline i kind of suspected that was the case (either implicitly or explicitly). The exciting bit will be when AI does something nobody has done before. Then we know for sure it isn't cheating.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  That milestone was achieved in the… 60s, I want to say? Definitely some time in the 20th century.
j45 2y ago
I get if LLMs don't read correctly, but reporters?
h1fra 2y ago
/s Breaking the last person to put the last brick of the house has built a house in just a few minutes

rybthrow2 2y ago

What about the other two use cases it came up repurposing existing drugs and identifying novel treatment targets for liver fibrosis as per the paper? https://research.google/blog/accelerating-scientific-breakthroughs-with-an-ai-co-scientist/ https://research.google/blog/accelerating-scientific-breakth...

colingauvin 2y ago
This article claims only 3 of the new materials were actually snythesizable (and all had been previously known of), and that the drug for liver fibrosis had already been investigated for liver fibrosis. https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/02/22/google-co-scientist-ai-cracks-superbug-problem-in-two-days-because-it-had-been-fed-the-teams-previous-paper-with-the-answer-in-it/ https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/02/22/google-co-scientist-ai-cr...
- rybthrow2 2y ago
  The snythesizable materials is another paper by deepmind not relying on LLMs and unrelated to this one. The article's author briefly mentions one of the other two findings without providing any sources to support the claim that they aren’t novel/useful? If it helps scientists find answers faster, I don’t see the problem—especially when the alternative is sifting through Google or endless research papers.

basisword 2y ago

When I first read this a few days ago the scientists explicitly stated that they hadn't published their results yet. Have they changed their story? From the BBC article on it: "He told the BBC of his shock when he found what it had done, given his research was not published so could not have been found by the AI system in the public domain." Also: Prof Penadés' said the tool had in fact done more than successfully replicating his research. "It's not just that the top hypothesis they provide was the right one," he said. "It's that they provide another four, and all of them made sense. "And for one of them, we never thought about it, and we're now working on that."

knowitnone 2y ago
"could not have been found by the AI system in the public domain." could he have been working in the cloud that exposed his unpublished paper to AI?
kedean 2y ago
They hadn't published the latest paper, but the many papers leading up to this were published, and so its able to work off of those. I'm not an expert in this field, but in this case, it seems they had already published a paper that listed this idea as an option and dismissed it, so in all likelihood Co-Scientist simply ignored the theoretical limitation. Either way, the headline is garbage. It's like being amazed that your coworker who you've documented every step in your process to managed to solve that problem before you. "I've been working on it for months and they solved it in a day!" is obviously false, they have all of the information and conclusions you've been producing while you worked on it. In this case, telling the coworker every detail is the non-consensual AI training process.
- pockmarked19 2y ago
  Yes, but it’s the same level of garbage as “Facebook was built in a week”, where the hidden part is “after The Harvard Connection spent two years iterating on the product and got everything stolen”. Society and people in general don’t want to hear these “sour grape” gripes. Unless they are the ones affected adversely.

bilekas 2y ago

It's clear after you read the article but that title is really typical these days. It's frustrating as heck but I will admit, it made me click on the link to see what it was all about. Still super impressed all the same.

ipsum2 2y ago

That's not exactly right. The answer was not explicitly given, according to the source: "However, the team did publish a paper in 2023 – which was fed to the system – about how this family of mobile genetic elements “steals bacteriophage tails to spread in nature”. At the time, the researchers thought the elements were limited to acquiring tails from phages infecting the same cell. Only later did they discover the elements can pick up tails floating around outside cells, too. So one explanation for how the AI co-scientist came up with the right answer is that it missed the apparent limitation that stopped the humans getting it. What is clear is that it was fed everything it needed to find the answer, rather than coming up with an entirely new idea. “Everything was already published, but in different bits,” says Penadés. “The system was able to put everything together.”" https://www.newscientist.com/article/2469072-can-googles-new-research-assistant-ai-give-scientists-superpowers/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2469072-can-googles-new...

letitgo12345 2y ago
Or the humans did think of it and were actively proceeding to test that hypothesis
slashdev 2y ago
Sometimes science isn’t doing completely novel things, but combining ideas across different disciplines or areas. AI has some potential here, because unlike a human, AI can be trained across all of it and has the opportunity to make connections a human, with more limited scope, might miss.
- Borealid 2y ago
  What matters isn't that an AI "make connections", it's that the AI generates some text that causes a human to make the connections. It doesn't even matter if what the AI generates is true or not, if it leads the human to truth. In this particular example it wasn't useful because the reader already knew the answer and was fishing for it with the LLM. But generally using an LLM as a creativity-inducer (a brainstorming tool) is fine, and IMO a better idea than trying to use them as an oracle.

bawolff 2y ago

The moment i read the headline i kind of suspected that was the case (either implicitly or explicitly). The exciting bit will be when AI does something nobody has done before. Then we know for sure it isn't cheating.

wizzwizz4 2y ago
That milestone was achieved in the… 60s, I want to say? Definitely some time in the 20th century.

j45 2y ago

I get if LLMs don't read correctly, but reporters?

h1fra 2y ago

/s Breaking the last person to put the last brick of the house has built a house in just a few minutes