The AI Hype Index: AI-designed antibiotics show promise

Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry.

Using AI to improve our health and well-being is one of the areas scientists and researchers are most excited about. The last month has seen an interesting leap forward: The technology has been put to work designing new antibiotics to fight hard-to-treat conditions, and OpenAI and Anthropic have both introduced new limiting features to curb potentially harmful conversations on their platforms. 

Unfortunately, not all the news has been positive. Doctors who overrely on AI to help them spot cancerous tumors found their detection skills dropped once they lost access to the tool, and a man fell ill after ChatGPT recommended he replace the salt in his diet with dangerous sodium bromide. These are yet more warning signs of how careful we have to be when it comes to using AI to make important decisions for our physical and mental states.