In 2017 John Jumper joined Google DeepMind amid reports the lab was working on protein structure prediction. Just three years later Jumper and demis hassabis led the development of an Artificial Intelligence system, AlphaFold 2, that could predict protein structures to within the width of an atom and deliver results in hours rather than months. Last year Jumper and demis hassabis shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry. The article reports a conversation with Jumper and other scientists about AlphaFold’s real-world impact, how researchers are using it and what might come next.
Companion chatbots have emerged as a prominent use of generative Artificial Intelligence, according to reporting in the piece. On platforms such as Character.Artificial Intelligence, Replika and Meta Artificial Intelligence users create personalized bots that can act as friends, romantic partners, parents, therapists or other personas. Some state governments are beginning to regulate companion Artificial Intelligence, but the article highlights a regulatory gap: legislation is not adequately addressing user privacy around these systems. The reporting is part of The State of Artificial Intelligence series, a subscriber-only collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review, and notes subscription paths for extended excerpts.
The newsletter also rounds up related developments. It notes an executive order called the “Genesis Mission” aimed at accelerating Artificial Intelligence-driven scientific breakthroughs and mentions Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 as a new model focused on coding. The piece highlights concerns such as the environmental effects linked to the AI boom in India and product changes like Character.Artificial Intelligence limiting time for underage users. It also flags the second wave of Artificial Intelligence coding tools that can prototype, test and debug code, potentially shifting developer roles toward reviewing and correcting model output. A quoted line captures a strand of industry sentiment: “Artificial Intelligence is a tsunami that is gonna wipe out everyone. So I’m handing out surfboards,” says filmmaker PJ Accetturo.
