Ido Amit is the Eden and Steven Romick Professorial Chair at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is a world leader and pioneer in the fields of single-cell genomics and big-data analytics, and their application in immunology and medicine. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Michael Bruno Memorial Award from the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Sanofi-Institute Pasteur Junior Award, recognition as an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the EMBO Gold Medal Award, the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation, and the Rappaport Prize.
Dear Ido,
What could be achieved if there was a public or nonprofit AI effort with the same scale and level of funding as the current large private efforts? What would be the benefits for society?
We have already used generative AI in our immunology investigations. There are some areas of biomedical research for which AI is helpful, but not for the entire biomedical field. There are specific applications, like AlphaFold, where the industry and high-power computing AI have an advantage. These areas will change and evolve, and it might be that academia will eventually be at a broad disadvantage.
I think however that for pure research, for new discovery, the complexity is still so great that for the next several years AI will only be a co-pilot. It will help in some respects, but research it's still going to be driven by human innovation.
I am part of the organizing committee of the Human Cell Atlas and there is certainly a need for heavy computing to provide an ordered structure to this effort; this is the direction needed for example for spatial data. Complex hypotheses will still originate from human investigators and, again, I see AI assisting as a co-pilot.
We are encouraging researchers at different career stages to share ideas about complex science problems that could benefit from a large-scale AI effort. We found that motivation and recognition could be provided if you and other well-known scientists were willing to talk to people that suggest the best ideas. You would be the judge and decide if any idea is for you deserving of attention. Any scientist selected might receive advice but could also be a potential collaborator. Many ideas will be produced, and society will take notice. Would you be willing to talk to any of these scientists?
Yes, I'm always happy to give advice and to participate in scientific discussions.