I sat down with Dr. Chris Bishop, a Microsoft technical fellow and the director of Microsoft Research AI for Science, to sink into the details of what AI is actually unlocking for science, and what kind of AI is doing it.

Episode Links:

5th paradigm of scientific discovery: https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/the-5th-paradigm-ai-driven-scientific-discovery/
Microsoft Aurora: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/introducing-aurora-the-first-large-scale-foundation-model-of-the-atmosphere/
The environmental cost of AI: https://www.thedeepview.co/p/the-public-health-crisis-of-artificial-intelligence
MatterGen: https://www.thedeepview.co/p/report-ai-is-everywhere-already-even-if-we-don-t-know-it
The dubious nature of AGI: https://www.thedeepview.co/p/the-nobel-prize-and-the-mainstreaming-of-ai-s-x-risk

Outline:

0:00 – Intro
2:13 – The importance of domain expertise in AI
5:17 – The promise of AI for science
12:47 – Project Aurora and climate modeling
15:27 – The cost-benefit analysis of AI
18:43 – Weather prediction models VS ChatGPT
21:36 – AI to shield against engineering disasters
24:36 – How does Microsoft decide which applications to pursue
27:32 – Microsoft Research’s main areas of focus
33:24 – MatterGen and material generation
39:24 – How the wet lab is changing
42:19 – Is AGI a worthwhile pursuit for scientific advancement?
47:43 – Technological optimism and the way forward

Get The Deep View — your daily source for in-depth, fact-based reporting on artificial intelligence — in your inbox every morning. Subscribe here!

Connect with us on X, TikTok and Instagram.

Artificial intelligence is a complicated topic, bound by a number of complex threads — technical science, ethics, safety, regulation, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, investment and — above all — humanity. On The Deep View: Conversations, Ian Krietzberg, host and Editor-in-Chief at The Deep View, breaks it all down, cutting through the hype to make clear what's important and why you should care.

Readings in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, Book II The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, Canto 14 The World-Soul