Thread #1498901
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https://people.com/tech-pro-uses-chatgpt-to-create-cancer-vaccine-for- his-dog-and-best-mate-11928192
A dedicated pet owner helped treat his dog's terminal cancer by running her tumor's genetic code through an AI chatbot, creating a vaccine just for her.
"Rose is my best mate and she's been with me through really tough times," Sydney tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham told Today Show Australia of his 8-year-old black staffy-shar pei mix. "When she was handed this sentence, I felt I had to do my part for her as well."
He sequenced the DNA in her tumor and "converted it from tissue to data," he explained, then "used that to sort of search for the problem in her DNA." With the assistance of ChatGPT, and the genetics program at University of New South Wales, he was able to pinpoint the problem, and then develop an RNA vaccine specifically for her type of cancer.
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>>1498901
As Conyngham said in an article from UNSW, "The price was $3000, which is probably beyond what most people would spend on this problem, but I thought screw it. It’s worth a shot.”
Professor Pall Thordarson, the director of the RNA Institute at UNSW, told Today that, at first, he was a bit skeptical. "Mainly just I thought this might take too long, and I guess one of the things we learned from this process ... the technology, even though we've been working similar MRNA for years, I just didn't think we could do this this quickly, and it would be in time to really help Rosie. So it's just been an amazing project for us to be involved in."
He shared that once they had the sequence, "it was less than two months from that point, till we handed it over to Paul who took it to the vet to help her."
Thordarson shared that there are implications for humans as well, explaining, "We can also use it for other diseases, possibly ... neurological diseases, for instance."
As for Rose, "It's added considerable lifespan and health," Conyngham said. Although the vaccine was not a cure, "it pushed back about 75% of the cancer. So, it shrunk it all down. There was just a little bit that didn't respond."
Conyngham said it took "about a month" before Rose responded to the vaccine, explaining, "At the start of December, her mobility was way down. She started to shut down and be a bit sad. Towards the end of January, she was jumping over a fence to chase a rabbit. "
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>>1498901
>With the assistance of ChatGPT, and the genetics program at University of New South Wales
Yeah I'm pretty sure the majority of the work wasn't fucking ChatGPT.
>Incredible, this man singlehandedly fought off a home invasion with ChatGPT (with the help of his advanced security system and arsenal of firearms)
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>>1498958
They literally still had to do all the work. All the AI did was go through a bunch of junk data quickly to get what they actually needed to help the dog. It's like saying "heh, now that they've made those computers run faster those programmers' jobs are REALLY in danger."
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>>1499038
He literally had to enlist an entire genetics program at his local university for help. You're literally lauding a calculator for helping design a building instead of the fucking architects and builders who actually did the work.
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>>1499050
AI didn't design it either. It was able to help point out the part of the dog's DNA sequence causing the problem. The genetics program then designed an RNA vaccine to fix said problem.
The irony is this should be a prime example of AI being used as a helpful tool akin to a calculator or reading program, but instead you're giving it whole ass credit even though all it did was shift through a lot of data quickly.
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>>1499055
>but instead you're giving it whole ass credit even though all it did was shift through a lot of data quickly.
Yeah, because it's a huge accomplishment. It could potentially trivialize the cost of treating cancer in the future.
Imagine if you were diagnosed with cancer, but instead of going $250k into debt to maybe sorta get rid of it, you ask an AI to create a blueprint, send it over to a geneticist, then he manufactures a custom-tailored RNA cocktail to cure your cancer for under $5k.
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>>1499058
>Imagine if you were diagnosed with cancer, but instead of going $250k into debt to maybe sorta get rid of it, you ask an AI to create a blueprint, send it over to a geneticist, then he manufactures a custom-tailored RNA cocktail to cure your cancer for under $5k.
That's not what happened you retard. The genetics team still had to make the blueprint; all ChatGPT did was help shift through the genetic sequence to pinpoint the problem. It took them 2 more months to properly develop the vaccine itself. Which, to be fair, is a genuine accomplishment and a show of the things AI can do when it's being used as a proper tool instead being treated like a magic orb, but this still massively overplays how much of a role it actually had in this.
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>>1499064
Objectively ChatGPT did not design the vaccine. It merely pinpointed the problem via data that it would've taken a human far longer to go through. You're saying the guy who found the leak in your pipes gets all the credit instead of the plumber who actually fixed them.
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>>1499071
>You're saying the guy who found the leak in your pipes gets all the credit instead of the plumber who actually fixed them.
Yeah, because otherwise the pipes wouldn't have been fixed. Except in this case it isn't pipes, it's cancer.
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>>1499084
>A human being could've just as easily looked through and cross checked their way through the dog's sequence.
And yet they hadn't.
You're unironically mad that an AI just made cancer treatment dramatically cheaper.
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>>1499085
>You're unironically mad that an AI just made cancer treatment dramatically cheaper.
The actual drug still cost him 3k and didn't even kill all the cancer. Plus it was for a dog, not a human.
I'm not saying AI isn't doing good things but saying it was the main player here is being so fucking disingenuous and this article is blatantly trying to piggyback off a good story to up AI stocks.