AI Might End All Diseases in 10 Years, Claims DeepMind Chief

Artificial Intelligence could within the next 10 years do what scientists and doctors have been striving to do for centuries — eliminate all diseases. Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and Google DeepMind CEO, believes that this could come true in the coming decade.

During an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, Hassabis stated that AI can revolutionize how medicines are discovered and developed. "It costs nearly billions of dollars and ten years minimum to develop a single drug," he said. "With the support of AI, reducing that to months or even weeks is possible."

When asked if he actually believes that AI might see the end of all diseases, Hassabis was adamant and stated, "I think that's within reach.

Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI noticed his remarks. This firm actually competes with Google's AI offerings. Srinivas, on the other hand, had no qualms about stating his admiration for Hassabis, calling him "a genius" and adding that he should be given whatever he needs to make this happen.

Hassabis also had a shocking illustration of what can currently be achieved by AI. He demonstrated how his AI program was able to catalog 200 million protein structures within one year — a task that would have cost human beings a billion years' worth of research time. "The identification of a single protein structure once required four or five years for a Ph.D. student," he explained. If we know these structures, we can see how diseases occur and design the appropriate drugs to correct them.

AI playing a major role in the cure of various challenging diseases that once seemed unconquerable is going to be the feature of the next decade provided everything moves at speed.