(Wired) – The DNA inside our cells isn’t just a series of instructions, but something far more dynamic. Like scientists, AI models don’t yet have the data to properly decode it.

These algorithms don’t worry about the complicated regulatory stuff going on. All of that is supposedly subsumed by the algorithm’s “training,” through which it deduces correlations from cases we already know about.

This approach is likely to be useful, but for those who crave real understanding of how the genome, and ultimately life itself, works, a computational black box will never suffice. And perhaps more to the point, the genome might not submit to the kind of straightforward input-output approach that such AI models ultimately assume. (Read More)