A.I. Just Designed An Enzyme That Eats Plastic

26 thoughts on “A.I. Just Designed An Enzyme That Eats Plastic”

1. I've recently started getting into computational chemistry, and I have to say, it is some of the wildest stuff I've studied recently. Seeing how machine learning is applied into pure chemistry is one thing. But I really want to see how ai and machine learning can be applied to chemical engineering, especially reaction engineering. Finding the optimal reaction conditions to maximize output and yield, minimize costs and operation time, it's not an easy task.

   I'm really looking forward to where this goes, especially in catalysis.

2. You've just had flu

3. Congratulations on your award 👏

4. What could go wrong? Hehe neat

5. So what about making it work at lower temperatures and it starts eating the bumper of our cars, the plastic wire casing? Whale blubber? How do we put the Genie back in the bottle then? We must be real careful with the quick fix.

6. here's an idea…
   Make less plastic.

7. Great! Rust for plastics! What a great idea… Quit meddling because it's meddlers that will cause YAH to clean the Earth next time with fire instead of water.

8. Absolutely brilliant
   😁👍

9. And thus begins the “grey goop” end of humanity 😅

10. The title is a weird extrapolation and pure exaggeration:

    Enzymes aren't even living things, at all. So they cannot "eat" anything. They can do chemical reactions to catalyze or break down or build up molecules from or into other stuff,, sure. But that ain't what's called "eating". Eating involves tons more biological steps: it is something WAY more complex than a mere enzymatic reaction.

    This title is like saying that because someone invented an automatic hammer that automatically hammers down nails, he thus invented a hammer that can build houses.

    Nopeeee sireee.

    Apart from that the video seems good.

11. They actually made five changes to the enzyme but only three of them were recommended by the AI so in the absence of further information it isn't really possible to determine how useful the AI was.
    Also,as noted in the video, only working better at higher temperatures is indeed an issue. Reactions are generally expected to go faster at higher temperatures so in itself this is not much of an achievement or surprise if the wild-type enzymes don't normally operate at such temperatures..

    It's a pity the whole article is paywalled at Nature. It is time that research funded by public monies should become free to the public, even if it is done with a delay to allow the Journals to make some profit (much academic publishing was generally very profitable the last time I looked).

12. What would happen if the enzyme made it out into the real world? The damage it would do would be apocalyptic considering there is plastic in everything.

13. Shoutouts to the scientist who knew exactly where to look to solve the problem. Nature has a lot of solutions if not all the solutions.

14. That’s awesome!!🔥🔥

15. yesss, fellow fan of Mike Kinsella eh. Owen and AFB are great. Love your content

16. AI has figured out humans are creating pe and eat us

17. Certain worms eat plastic. Humans know this already

18. Plastic is solid petrol

19. What is your view on turning waste plastic back into oil and waxes for reuse.

20. If I'd get a dollar for every number-crunching trial-and-error algorithm being called A.I., I could buy a Lambo.

21. 1:15 PET based product are notoriously difficult to recycle ♻️ ? This is absolutely false

22. If it can be used for the good of humankind, it can also be used for the bad of humankind. The bigger issue is the interconnectedness of human populations today. So if one bad thing happens in one place with a spreadable agent it can easily spread everywhere rather rapidly.

    There needs to be far more discussion on ethics in research and creating the means to stop such endeavors from getting out of hand before releasing them into the public. We need essentially antidotes and safeguards of a sort first; One doesn't step on the accelerator pedal in a car before they learn of the brake pedal. The same should go for chemistry and biology research.

23. I cant be the only on thinking….this will end badly

24. Don't do it. Look at what happened in Stray.

25. This scares me tbh. What if it morphs, or jumps into eating flesh, or plants, etc.

26. actually this isn’t new it has been around awhile still intresting though.

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