OpenAI has created an AI model for longevity science

Although genetic engineers have ways to direct evolution of molecules in the lab, they can usually test only so many possibilities. And even a protein of typical length can be changed in nearly infinite ways (since they’re built from hundreds of amino acids, and each acid comes in 20 possible varieties).

OpenAI’s model, however, often spits out suggestions in which a third of the amino acids in the proteins were changed.

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“We threw this model into the lab immediately and we got real-world results,” says Retro’s CEO, Joe Betts-Lacroix. He says the model’s ideas were unusually good, leading to improvements over the original Yamanaka factors in a substantial fraction of cases.

Vadim Gladyshev, a Harvard University aging researcher who consults with Retro, says better ways of making stem cells are needed. “For us, it would be extremely useful. [Skin cells] are easy to reprogram, but other cells are not,” he says. “And to do it in a new species—it’s often extremely different, and you don’t get anything.” 

How exactly the GPT-4b arrives at its guesses is still not clear—as is often the case with AI models. “It’s like when AlphaGo crushed the best human at Go, but it took a long time to find out why,” says Betts-Lacroix. “We are still figuring out what it does, and we think the way we apply this is only scratching the surface.”

OpenAI says no money changed hands in the collaboration. But because the work could benefit Retro—whose biggest investor is Altman—the announcement may add to questions swirling around the OpenAI CEO’s side projects.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal said Altman’s wide-ranging investments in private tech startups amount to an “opaque investment empire” that is “creating a mounting list of potential conflicts,” since some of these companies also do business with OpenAI.

In Retro’s case, simply being associated with Altman, OpenAI, and the race toward AGI could boost its profile and increase its ability to hire staff and raise funds. Betts-Lacroix did not answer questions about whether the early-stage company is currently in fundraising mode. 

OpenAI says Altman was not directly involved in the work and that it never makes decisions based on Altman’s other investments.