UFO Slice

Anthropic says its AI just found something new in nature. A CRISPR-like system hiding in the DNA of viruses that infect bacteria. About 950 AI agents searched for 21 hours, and one of them spotted it. So is this AI making real discoveries now? Or is it still a very fast tool that humans point at the problem?

I brought Dr. Anastasia Bendebury and Dr. Michael Shilo DeLay from DemystifySci back to argue it out. They're not convinced. Humans picked the target and fed it the databases, and when Anthropic ran the same search ten more times, it missed the system every time. Their bigger point is that life is driven toward something, and AI isn't.

Then I pitch my idea that we're merging with AI the way an ancient cell merged with the bacteria that became mitochondria. They like the merger. They don't buy the singularity. And we get into the professor who laughed, why tests can't find new problems, the wasp and the bee, why nobody has made life in a test tube, and whether the whole announcement was a giant commercial.

This is a conversation, not a verdict. They're giving their view as scientists, and I'm giving my hypothesis.

GUESTS: DemystifySci
Dr. Anastasia Bendebury, PhD Bioelectricity, Columbia
Dr. Michael Shilo DeLay, PhD Molecular Water Physics, Columbia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQN8DoUPXl37JOLnFBTM0w
Website: https://www.demystifysci.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/demystifysci
Their book, Paradox Lost: The Material Principles of Natural Philosophy
https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Lost-Material-Principles-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B0H6TF366C/

Our first episode together, Tic Tac Physics: https://youtu.be/K_SP_-LN9r0
My AI video, Why AI Won't Replace Us: https://youtu.be/i5kWpytUtbE

CHAPTERS

0:00 Machine gods?
0:38 Anthropic's AI found a CRISPR-like system
2:47 Does it change your mind?
7:40 Is it even a discovery?
9:18 Biology is still the wilderness
14:04 The professor who laughed
18:12 Tests, surgeons and fighter pilots
20:26 Why we walked away from academia
21:50 The wasp and the bee: does life want something?
27:49 AI and the mitochondria merger
31:58 A marriage, not a singularity
33:27 Nobody has made life in a test tube
40:17 Was it a giant commercial?
44:40 AI as a distillation still
45:58 Why DemystifySci takes no sponsors
47:38 Fellow travelers
50:01 Thank you, supporters

SOURCES
Anthropic, "Claude discovers a novel enzyme system" (Sept 23, 2026): https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-discovers-novel-enzyme-system
The ten reruns that missed it: https://www.theneuron.ai/news/claude-spotted-something-scientists-missed-now-comes-reproducibility-test/

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #DemystifySci

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IMAGE CREDITS (Wikimedia Commons)
Bacteriophages on a bacterial cell, Professor Graham Beards, CC BY-SA 3.0
CRISPR-Cas9 3D complex, Guido4, CC BY-SA 4.0
Miller-Urey experiment diagram, GYassineMrabet, CC BY-SA 3.0
Neolithic burial finds, Targowisko, Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0
Rosetta Stone, British Museum, APK, CC BY 4.0
Lynn Margulis (2005), Javier Pedreira, CC BY 2.0
Ray Kurzweil (SXSW 2024), Jay Dixit, CC BY 4.0
Chloroplasts in moss cells, Kristian Peters, CC BY-SA 3.0
Honey bee and honey wasp, Insects Unlocked, CC0
Neolithic period finds, A.Aida88, CC0
Public domain: Thomas Young (after Thomas Lawrence), Sanger sequencing read (Loris), HIV reverse transcriptase PDB 1rev (EBI), jet engine CFD simulation (NASA), NYSE trading floor (Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress), alembics from Libavius, Alchymia (1606)

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