Research Briefing |
Featured
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News & Views |
Large language models direct automated chemistry laboratory
Automation of chemistry research has focused on developing robots to execute jobs. Artificial-intelligence technology has now been used not only to control robots, but also to plan their tasks on the basis of simple human prompts.
- Ana Laura Dias
- & Tiago Rodrigues
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Research Briefing |
‘Explainable’ AI identifies a new class of antibiotics
An artificial-intelligence graph neural network was trained on experimental data and used to identify chemical substructures that underlie selective antibiotic activity in more than 12 million compounds. This led to the discovery of a class of antibiotics with in vitro and in vivo activity against Gram-positive bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus.
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Article
| Open AccessAutonomous chemical research with large language models
Coscientist is an artificial intelligence system driven by GPT-4 that autonomously designs, plans and performs experiments by incorporating large language models empowered by tools such as internet and documentation search, code execution and experimental automation.
- Daniil A. Boiko
- , Robert MacKnight
- & Gabe Gomes
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Article |
Discovery of a structural class of antibiotics with explainable deep learning
An explainable deep learning model using a chemical substructure-based approach for the exploration of chemical compound libraries identified structural classes of compounds with antibiotic activity and low toxicity.
- Felix Wong
- , Erica J. Zheng
- & James J. Collins
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News |
DeepMind AI outdoes human mathematicians on unsolved problem
Large language model improves on efforts to solve combinatorics problems inspired by the card game Set.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Article
| Open AccessMathematical discoveries from program search with large language models
FunSearch makes discoveries in established open problems using large language models by searching for programs describing how to solve a problem, rather than what the solution is.
- Bernardino Romera-Paredes
- , Mohammadamin Barekatain
- & Alhussein Fawzi
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News Feature |
ChatGPT and science: the AI system was a force in 2023 — for good and bad
The poster child for generative AI software is a startling human mimic. It represents a potential new era in research, but brings risks.
- Richard Van Noorden
- & Richard Webb
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News Feature |
OpenAI’s chief scientist helped to create ChatGPT — while worrying about AI safety
Ilya Sutskever has played a key part in developing the conversational AI systems that are starting to change society.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
‘Biocomputer’ combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware
A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine can recognize voices.
- Lilly Tozer
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Outlook |
This cyborg cockroach could be the future of earthquake search and rescue
From drivable bionic animals to machines made from muscle, biohybrid robots are on their way to a variety of uses.
- Liam Drew
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News Feature |
Is AI leading to a reproducibility crisis in science?
Scientists worry that ill-informed use of artificial intelligence is driving a deluge of unreliable or useless research.
- Philip Ball
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News |
IBM releases first-ever 1,000-qubit quantum chip
The company announces its latest huge chip — but will now focus on developing smaller chips with a fresh approach to ‘error correction’.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Obituary |
Evelyn Fox Keller (1936–2023), philosopher who questioned gender roles in science
Mathematical biologist, philosopher and historian of science who challenged the vision of science as a masculine activity.
- Marga Vicedo
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Comment |
ChatGPT one year on: who is using it, how and why?
In just a year, ChatGPT has permeated scientific research. Seven scientists reveal what they have learnt about how the chatbot should — and shouldn’t — be used.
- Marzyeh Ghassemi
- , Abeba Birhane
- & Francisco Tustumi
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News |
How does it feel to have an octopus arm? This robo-tentacle lets people find out
Mimicking the snatch and grab of an octopus snaring its prey required a new way of thinking about robotics.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News |
Google AI and robots join forces to build new materials
Tool from Google DeepMind predicts nearly 400,000 stable substances, and an autonomous system learns to make them in the lab.
- Mark Peplow
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Article
| Open AccessScaling deep learning for materials discovery
A protocol using large-scale training of graph networks enables high-throughput discovery of novel stable structures and led to the identification of 2.2 million crystal structures, of which 381,000 are newly discovered stable materials.
- Amil Merchant
- , Simon Batzner
- & Ekin Dogus Cubuk
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Article
| Open AccessHuman mobility networks reveal increased segregation in large cities
There is extreme socioeconomic segregation in large US cities, arising from a greater choice of differentiated spaces targeted to specific socioeconomic groups, which can be countered by positioning city hubs (such as shopping centres) to bridge diverse neighbourhoods.
- Hamed Nilforoshan
- , Wenli Looi
- & Jure Leskovec
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News Explainer |
What the OpenAI drama means for AI progress — and safety
A debacle at the company that built ChatGPT highlights concern that commercial forces are acting against the responsible development of artificial-intelligence systems.
- Nicola Jones
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Essay |
How AI is expanding art history
From identifying disputed artworks to reconstructing lost masterpieces, artificial intelligence is enriching how we interpret our cultural heritage.
- David G. Stork
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Nature Index |
Hypotheses devised by AI could find ‘blind spots’ in research
Artificial intelligence is asking questions that humans hope to answer.
- Matthew Hutson
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News Feature |
ChatGPT has entered the classroom: how LLMs could transform education
Researchers, educators and companies are experimenting with ways to turn flawed but famous large language models into trustworthy, accurate ‘thought partners’ for learning.
- Andy Extance
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Editorial |
Why teachers should explore ChatGPT’s potential — despite the risks
Many students now use AI chatbots to help with their assignments. Educators need to study how to include these tools in teaching and learning — and minimize pitfalls.
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Comment |
Disaster early-warning systems can succeed — but collective action is needed
From floods to wildfires, and tsunamis to volcanic eruptions, early-warning systems can stop natural hazards becoming human disasters. But more joined-up thinking is urgently needed.
- Andrew C. Tupper
- & Carina J. Fearnley
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Perspective |
Role play with large language models
By casting large-language-model-based dialogue-agent behaviour in terms of role play, it is possible to describe dialogue-agent behaviour such as (apparent) deception and (apparent) self-awareness without misleadingly ascribing human characteristics to the models.
- Murray Shanahan
- , Kyle McDonell
- & Laria Reynolds
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Comment |
‘Oceans are hugely complex’: modelling marine microbes is key to climate forecasts
Microorganisms are the engines that drive most marine processes. Ocean modelling must evolve to take their biological complexity into account.
- Alessandro Tagliabue
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Nature Podcast |
Nature's Take: How will ChatGPT and generative AI transform research?
Nature staff take on the big topics that matter in science.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- , Magdalena Skipper
- & Yann Sweeney
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News |
The world’s week on AI safety: powerful computing efforts launched to boost research
UK and US governments establish efforts to democratize access to supercomputers that will aid studies on AI systems.
- Nicola Jones
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Spotlight |
Keeping secrets in a quantum world
Cryptographers are preparing for new quantum computers that will break their ciphers.
- Neil Savage
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Editorial |
Why the UK-led global AI summit is missing the point
Robust regulation of AI technologies will be crucial to protecting against harms. Researchers’ voices must be heard.
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Comment |
Garbage in, garbage out: mitigating risks and maximizing benefits of AI in research
Artificial-intelligence tools are transforming data-driven science — better ethical standards and more robust data curation are needed to fuel the boom and prevent a bust.
- Brooks Hanson
- , Shelley Stall
- & Ge Peng
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Research Highlight |
How big quantum computers could keep their qubits under control
Multitasking electrodes could enable 1,000 qubits to fit onto one device.
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Outlook |
How robots can learn to follow a moral code
Ethical artificial intelligence aims to impart human values on machine-learning systems.
- Neil Savage
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Research Briefing |
Computer vision accelerated using photons and electrons
A single chip that integrates optical and electronic analog computing modules provides a strategy for creating all-analog computing processors with a speed and energy efficiency that are several orders of magnitude higher than those of state-of-the-art digital processors.
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News |
AI ‘breakthrough’: neural net has human-like ability to generalize language
A neural-network-based artificial intelligence outperforms ChatGPT at quickly folding new words into its lexicon, a key aspect of human intelligence.
- Max Kozlov
- & Celeste Biever
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Article
| Open AccessAll-analog photoelectronic chip for high-speed vision tasks
An all-analog chip combining electronic and light computing achieves systemic energy efficiency of more than three orders of magnitude and a computing speed of more than one order of magnitude compared with state-of-the-art computing processors.
- Yitong Chen
- , Maimaiti Nazhamaiti
- & Qionghai Dai
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Article
| Open AccessHuman-like systematic generalization through a meta-learning neural network
The meta-learning for compositionality approach achieves the systematicity and flexibility needed for human-like generalization.
- Brenden M. Lake
- & Marco Baroni
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News |
AI tidies up Wikipedia’s references — and boosts reliability
A neural network can identify references that are unlikely to support an article’s claims, and scour the web for better sources.
- Chris Stokel-Walker
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News |
‘Mind-blowing’ IBM chip speeds up AI
IBM’s NorthPole processor sidesteps need to access external memory, boosting computing power and saving energy.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Comment |
Living guidelines for generative AI — why scientists must oversee its use
Establish an independent scientific body to test and certify generative artificial intelligence, before the technology damages science and public trust.
- Claudi L. Bockting
- , Eva A. M. van Dis
- & Johan Bollen
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News & Views |
The technique that can find a system’s state through data alone
Pinpointing the state of a complex system is tricky, especially when the underlying mathematical equations aren’t known. But a data-driven technique makes light work of it — and could even change the way that models are formulated.
- Brendan Keith
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Article
| Open AccessState estimation of a physical system with unknown governing equations
A parametrization strategy for stochastic variational inference with Markov Gaussian processes is presented for state estimation of a physical system whose underlying dynamical equations are partially or completely unknown.
- Kevin Course
- & Prasanth B. Nair
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Editorial |
AI’s potential to accelerate drug discovery needs a reality check
Companies say the technology will contribute to faster drug development. Independent verification and clinical trials will determine whether this claim holds up.
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Comment |
‘I wrote my first piece of code at seven’: women share highs and lows in computer science for Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace was a visionary who first recognized the potential of computer programming. Almost two centuries on, six women in computer science and technology reflect on their experiences in the field.
- Janet Abbate
- , Shobhana Narasimhan
- & Verena Rieser
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Obituary |
C. R. Rao, statistician who transformed data analytics (1920–2023)
Pioneer of powerful tools for sifting data and optimizing device designs.
- Shyamal D. Peddada
- & Ravindra Khattree
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News Feature |
How ChatGPT and other AI tools could disrupt scientific publishing
A world of AI-assisted writing and reviewing might transform the nature of the scientific paper.
- Gemma Conroy
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Nature Podcast |
'This doesn't just fall on women': computer scientists reflect on gender biases in STEM
Two researchers share their experiences and discuss the inequalities that impact women in the computer sciences.
- Nick Petrić Howe
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News |
New kind of quantum computer made using high-resolution microscope
Individual atoms on a surface do their first basic calculation.
- Davide Castelvecchi