AI to cure cancer in our lifetime? Google's President and CIO Ruth Porat believes so, here's why

Google's president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat believes we are living in a time of significant breakthrough as artificial intelligence evolves from “much more than a chatbot” and can play a significant hand in cancer cure, Fortune reported.

Speaking at the Fortune Global Forum, alongside Barclays Group CEO CS Venkatakrishnan, and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih, on October 26, the executive was optimistic that AI has potential to lead scientific, economic and social innovation.

Google's Ruth Porat on potential of AI: ‘People playing with chatbots’

“We are all privileged to live at this time in history because of the opportunity AI presents,” Porat told the audience. According to her, AI is a force for transformation rather than mere technology and can reshape industries, economic growth and drive economic progress.

“People are playing with AI through chatbots, and that is great, because that gets you on the journey. But then the question is: what does it mean for my country? What does it mean for my business? It’s underappreciated how we’re already living through significant breakthroughs in health and science,” she added.

Porat: AI ‘key driver’ of scientific discovery, ‘should be able to cure cancer’

Porat pointed to examples where AI contributed to significant breakthroughs in healthcare (DeepMind's open-source AlphaFold project maps protein structures in 3D), and called it “the greatest contribution to drug discovery in our lifetime”, the report added.

Notably, the AlphaFold results have been used by scientists in over 190 countries to accelerate research into diseases previously thought to be complex and unmanageable.

“We all know early diagnosis can be the difference between survival or not or how difficult the course of treatment is,” Porat added, noting that in cases of cancer, early detection is key to survival. She added that spotting these metastatic cells early is similar to “finding the needle in the haystack”, but is within the capabilities of AI.

She was confident that “We should be able to cure cancer in our lifetime”.

AI to cut down time required to discover new medicines: DeepMind head

Google parent, Alphabet's AI lab DeepMind and its drug discovery unit Isomorphic Labs are working to reduce the time taken to discover new medicines, DeepMind head Demis Hassabis told Bloomberg TV in an interview in September.

“In the next couple of years, I’d like to see that cut down in a matter of months, instead of years. That’s what I think is possible. Perhaps even faster,” said Hassabis, a Nobel Prize winner.

He added that his researchers are working on a “much more advanced” version of the latest AlphaFold model, capable of understanding more than just protein interactions, and is working to find treatments for cancer and immune disorders.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)