Anthropic says its AI Claude has “autonomously discovered” a new enzyme system similar to the machinery behind the gene-editing tool Crispr — the first result from the company’s newly launched wet lab, The Verge reported Wednesday.
The company said Claude searched a massive DNA-sequence database, with scientists’ involvement limited to the initial prompt and later lab work. Over 21 hours, nearly 950 Claude agents worked through about 210 million tokens before one spotted an unusual repeating pattern and flagged it for human review. Further analysis and lab testing revealed “a previously uncharacterized enzyme system found in bacteriophages,” viruses that infect bacteria.
Anthropic said it is still working to understand what the enzyme system does, but felt it was important to share early to demonstrate Claude’s capabilities and give the broader community insight. Despite comparisons to Crispr, it remains unclear whether the find will have practical applications. The premature announcement comes as Anthropic seeks to attract more scientists and expand into areas like drug discovery ahead of a possible public listing.
Sources: The Verge (Robert Hart)
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