Re:AlphaFold 3 predicts the structure and interactions of al...
by jvanderbot on Wednesday May 08, 2024 @03:16PM
(#40301855)
I'm not saying it's achievable, I'm saying it's not magic. A chemist who wishes to understand what the model is doing can get as far as anyone else, and can reach a level of "this prediction machine works well and I understand how to use and change it". Even if it requires another PhD in CS.
That the tools became complex is not a reason to fret in science. No more than statistical physics or quantum mechanics or CNN for image processing - it's complex and opaque and hard to explain but perfectly reproduceable. "It works better than my intuition" is a level of sophistication that most methods are probably doomed to achieve.
While computer operations in solutions are computable by humans, the billions of rapid computations are unachievable by humans. In just a few seconds, a computer can perform more basic arithmetic operations than a human could in a lifetime.