Today's Edition

• Scientists discover the first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI

• Baidu's ChatGPT-like Ernie Bot has more than 100 mln users -CTO

• Quote of the Day

• Tech Spotlight

• Image of the Day

📰 Scientists discover the first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI

Scientists have recently made a breakthrough in the fight against antibiotic resistance, discovering a new class of antibiotics effective against the drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. This discovery, marking the first of its kind in 60 years, was facilitated by the innovative use of transparent deep learning models within the realm of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI's role in medicine is becoming increasingly significant, as it aids in revealing new antibiotics. The newly identified compound is particularly noteworthy for its ability to combat MRSA, a bacterium responsible for thousands of deaths globally each year.

"What we set out to do in this study was to open the black box. These models consist of very large numbers of calculations that mimic neural connections, and no one really knows what's going on underneath the hood," said Felix Wong, a postdoc at MIT and Harvard and one of the study’s lead authors.

The project's success can be attributed to a deep-learning model that predicted the new compound's activity and toxicity. Deep learning, which utilizes artificial neural networks to intuitively learn from data without specific programming, is a rapidly evolving tool in drug discovery. This technology speeds up the identification of possible drug candidates, predicts their characteristics, and streamlines drug development.

In targeting MRSA, a bacteria known for causing everything from mild skin infections to severe, life-threatening conditions like pneumonia and bloodstream infections, researchers evaluated around 39,000 compounds for their antibiotic effectiveness. The gathered data and the chemical structures of these compounds were then fed into the model to facilitate the training process.

"The insight here was that we could see what was being learned by the models to make their predictions that certain molecules would make for good antibiotics," James Collins, professor of Medical Engineering and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the study’s authors, said in a statement.

📰 Baidu's ChatGPT-like Ernie Bot has more than 100 mln users -CTO

Wang Haifeng, the Chief Technology Officer of Baidu, announced that Ernie Bot, the company's answer to ChatGPT, has attracted over 100 million users. This significant achievement was shared during a deep learning summit in Beijing, following the public release of Ernie Bot in August, which came after an initial unveiling and a more than five-month evaluation phase with selected users.

Despite a somewhat lackluster initial reveal in March, analysts believe Baidu gained a crucial early advantage in an increasingly saturated market. Numerous Chinese tech firms, both big and small, are now developing their chatbots powered by generative AI.

This surge in interest follows the late 2022 debut of ChatGPT by the U.S.-based research organization OpenAI, which rapidly became the world's fastest-growing software application in just six months. OpenAI, initially a nonprofit, saw its valuation soar above $80 billion, with Microsoft investing $13 billion in a for-profit arm for a 49% share.

Baidu CEO Robin Li has been vocal this year about Ernie Bot and similar products, asserting their potential to boost the company's presence in key sectors like search engines, cloud services, and intelligent vehicles.

A recent report by SuperCLUE, a platform ranking generative AI-powered chatbots, placed Ernie Bot at the top among Chinese offerings. However, it noted that Ernie Bot's score of 79.02 trails the latest version of ChatGPT by over 10 points.

Read more here

🗣️ AI “Quote of the Day”

"Dreams are like stars; you may never touch them, but if you follow them, they will lead you to your destiny."

Created with ChatGPT / DALL-E

🚀 AI Tech Spotlight

🔍️ Letty - Craft Perfect E-mail in Seconds

"Letty" is an AI-powered email assistant designed to enhance email composition and response. It offers features like context-aware reply suggestions, time-saving email drafting, and consistent quality assurance. Letty ensures privacy, as it doesn't store user data. It supports Gmail, with plans for Outlook and Zoho. The service has a free plan with basic features and a premium plan offering unlimited AI generations, advanced composing, and support for over 100 languages. Letty is currently available for Chrome. For more information, visit [Letty](https://www.useletty.com/).

🖼️ Image of the Day

Robots celebrating New Years’ Eve