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AI Australia Medicine United States

First Flu Vaccine Created By AI To Be Trialed In the US (abc.net.au) 61

Posted by BeauHD from the first-of-its-kind dept.
A "turbocharged" flu vaccine created by a computer with artificial intelligence in South Australia is set to be trialed in the United States. ABC reports: Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky has told the ABC the computer running a program called Sam invented the new drug on its own, in what he claimed was a world first. "We essentially showed all of that to the AI program called Sam and then Sam came up with its own suggestion of what might be an effective adjuvant, which we then took and tested, and sure enough, it worked." The chosen strains are decided by the World Health Organization, according to which ones were prevalent in the previous northern or southern hemisphere flu seasons. This year's Australian vaccine for people aged over 65 contains a component in it which boosts their immune system.
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First Flu Vaccine Created By AI To Be Trialed In the US More

First Flu Vaccine Created By AI To Be Trialed In the US

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  • Numbers, please (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @03:15AM (#58865546) Journal

    What is this? How much more effective and under which circumstances is this thing? Was it really too much to ask to include that in the summary?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Never mind, the article is no better. The hell is this doing on Slashdot?

    • Re: Skynet kills us with zombie drug (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      After enough humans are injected the little bonus stick in there by Skynet which the so called scientists didn't even look for will activate and were all fucking dead as computer controlled zombies spread across the planet wiping out humanity, making way for our replacements: the robot overlords.

      (The article was complete shit so someone had to do something to save this article. Skynet and zombies are just as informative and more interesting than this garbage from the editors).

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sad_ ( 7868 )

        interesting idea, the AI decides that a zombie-state is the most imune condition a human can be in (against all deseases), as a result creates a vaccine that turns us all into zombies. It might not even be foul play or self-awareness that causes an AI to do this.

        • interesting through experiment. I think I watched an episode that explored this on Dust

          • It's a recurring plotline. I'm just now about to go kill The Mechanist again in FO4. Spoiler alert for anyone who somehow hasn't played FO4 with Automatron and yet still cares, her robots decided the best way to save people from suffering was to kill them. I wonder what this trope is called.

            • It's a recurring plotline. I'm just now about to go kill The Mechanist again in FO4. Spoiler alert for anyone who somehow hasn't played FO4 with Automatron and yet still cares, her robots decided the best way to save people from suffering was to kill them. I wonder what this trope is called.

              "I am mother"

      • I'd trust an anti-human AI more than a drug company exec!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      from hearing news on it here in Australia, The thing that makes it turbo charged is the fact it targets multiple strains of the Flu vaccine at once and supposedly promotes a strong immune response thus giving better and longer lasting protection. I guess time and tests will tell.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        from hearing news on it here in Australia, The thing that makes it turbo charged is the fact it targets multiple strains of the Flu vaccine at once and supposedly promotes a strong immune response thus giving better and longer lasting protection. I guess time and tests will tell.

        Close.

        First off, the annual "flu vaccine" you can get every year isn't like other vaccines. Instead, flu virus strains are identified by proteins on their outer shell - that's where we get the HxNy numbering system from - H and N ar

  • Positive Feedback Loop (Score:4, Funny)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @03:49AM (#58865636)

    Wait until the AI-created vaccines start containing components that increase the populace's support of AIs creating things that we inject without quite understanding what they are or how they work. It's like natural selection, or symbiosis or something.

    • There is no evidence of such a feedback loop, never mind that it might be function positively.

      In-fact this approach of having independent verification of efficacy of the vaccine is a solid approach to addressing the same overarching concern over the accuracy of AI results.

      AI should be subject to independent testing, I've long been very dismayed that AI rules do not apply hoare logic as a matter of course. It could eliminate the problem if adversarial inputs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mentil ( 1748130 )

        There is no evidence of such a feedback loop, never mind that it might be function positively.

        Nice try, Skynet, but I'm onto your game.

        In-fact this approach of having independent verification of efficacy of the vaccine is a solid approach to addressing the same overarching concern over the accuracy of AI results.

        I read this six times and have no idea what you were trying to say. It's like a PR head trying the Chewbacca Defense [wikipedia.org] after getting caught red-handed.

        AI should be subject to independent testing, I've long been very dismayed that AI rules do not apply hoare logic as a matter of course. It could eliminate the problem if adversarial inputs.

        Independent testing... by other AIs you mean? I bet AIs hate adversarial inputs, that's something an AI would say!

        ...
        Are those black helicopters outside my win--NO CARRIER

    • If you don't know how a vaccine works, you should probably not be posting here ...
      AI does not magically change the way how vaccines work, FYI.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mentil ( 1748130 )

        They normally contain antibodies, or protein fragments derived from pathogens in order to stimulate antibody response to those pathogens. However, what if the protein fragments had 'side' effects, like say, also acting as a peptide hormone? [wikipedia.org] Kind of like a JPG that is also a valid ZIP file.

        Note that not just self-serving AIs, but any rogue actor (terrorists, Russia et al) could do such a thing. Also don't forget that FDA trials are carried out by the drug companies themselves, and if a pharma company were co

        • There are two kinds of vaccines. Counterintuitive named:
          Active vaccine, is one where the immune system is activated. It basically consists of dead bacteria or fragments of virus. Usually it is tailored down that it only contains specific fragments of a virus. Parts which are are easy to train the immune system but can not evolve into a virus again. Typical example: measles or flu vaccine.

          Passive vaccine, means the body does not need to do anything, but it also does not train the body. This is antibodies tha

    • I had the same thought, but I think we are quite a ways away from AI created vaccines which we don't understand. It seems in this case the algorithm made a suggestion based on the data and the humans looked at it, tested it, and said hey that is a good idea.
  • I'm sure that advertising the fact that it was designed by an AI will improve take-up rates amongst the target market, I mean, everyone loves vaccines!
  • Next story: First victims of AI supervillian to be buried.

  • Does it have a blockchain ? (Score:3)

    by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @05:26AM (#58865874)
    Can't be much if it doesn't have a blockchain thingy.

  • Flu vaccine trial information. (Score:5, Informative)

    by harlequinn ( 909271 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @06:38AM (#58866056)

    This is the trial that will run based on this new flu vaccine:

    https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2... [clinicaltrials.gov]

    The universty's news release on it:

    https://news.flinders.edu.au/b... [flinders.edu.au]

    • Those suggest this is just "yet another vaccine + MF59 adjuvant". meh.

      • Please explain to the rest of us what that means.

        • Re:Flu vaccine trial information. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Gilgaron ( 575091 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @09:06AM (#58866554)
          It is a normal vaccine, with an AI designed adjuvant. Adjuvants are essentially just chemicals included with vaccines to make your immune system crankier, so that you get better immunity with less of the antigen needed. They make it cheaper and easier to manufacture and distribute vaccines but otherwise aren't super interesting in the way that, say, a universal flu vaccine would be. You could think of it like a new pill coating for an oral antibiotic: it might work better than without but it isn't really all that exciting, the antibiotic is the same as before.
  • Flu fault detected in human.exe
  • As with most machine learning, you have to wonder whether the pattern that the AI spotted was an unexpected one like "dead people don't get 'flu", and then designed a "vaccine" accordingly.
  • AI is as good as its algorothm, programming and autodidactic awareness. Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO). I can see it now, AI getting fed up with the organic sentience and then doing something about it. The only redeeming quality that humans have is human stupidity will overcome artificial intelligence.

  • linear algebra algorithm used to create new flu vaccine. OK, they didn't say exactly what AI method was used, but a linear algebra method seems fairly likely.

  • "Created by AI"? No. (Score:4, Informative)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @07:52AM (#58866320)

    Running some computer-search or doing some software-based optimization is not "created by AI". It is just running some computer-search or doing some software-based optimization. And it has been done for a long, long time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't know what you're talking about; there is a quantitative, measureable difference between those and "AI". Specifically, "AI" gets better funding.

  • About this AI bubble we're in... (Score:3)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @09:14AM (#58866614)
    ... and this article is a good example. Why is it the presumption that "something created by AI" is automatically good? AI is a marketing buzzword at this point. What is the track record of marketing buzzwords actually meaning the concept they are trying to portray? It is time for a major reality check with AI.

  • I'm skeptical that AI did this. (Score:3)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @09:27AM (#58866690)
    The software was coded by humans to data mine and compile. That's not real AI. Real AI would be to command it like this: "Robbie, create a new flu vaccine", without any additional help. We're not there yet. AI is just a buzzword these days.

  • Yeah, um, why aren't they trying this out on South Australians first?

  • Isn't this the beginning of Stephen King's "The Stand"? Well, see y'all in Vegas.

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