OpenAI has announced a partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), renowned for developing the world's first nuclear weapon under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
This collaboration aims to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), like OpenAI's latest multimodal language model GPT-4o, in advancing bioscience research.
According to a July 10 statement, the focus will be on assessing the biological safety of GPT-4o and its unreleased real-time voice systems to determine their effectiveness in supporting bioscience research.
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The assessment will test how well experts and novices perform standard laboratory tasks with GPT-4o's assistance. The tasks include genetic transformation, cell culture, and cell separation.
OpenAI stated that the new partnership will expand its prior bioscience efforts in two key areas. First, it will include "wet lab techniques," training models to help with complex tasks like mass spectrometry. Second, the focus will be on new AI "modalities" in lab settings, using GPT-4o's voice and visual inputs to potentially speed up learning for scientists.
Founded in 1943, LANL was initially dedicated to military research and the development of nuclear weapons. However, since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the lab has shifted its focus to civilian research and development.
The lab's bioscience division is currently engaged in various research areas, such as vaccine development, sustainability biotech, and biothreat detection, as well as studying the effects of climate change on disease emergence.
OpenAI's partnership with LANL represents a significant step towards integrating advanced AI technologies in bioscience research, promising to bring innovative solutions and new efficiencies to the field.
This collaboration arises during heightened scrutiny of the AI research firm. Following the announcement that OpenAI's ChatGPT will be integrated into Apple's operating systems, Elon Musk declared he would ban the use of Apple devices within his companies, citing security violations.
