Few use cases of AI

Use cases of AI:

Use case 1)
DeepMind’s AlphaFold solved a 50-year-old biology problem—predicting 3D protein structures.

Understanding the Protein Folding Problem

What Are Proteins? Proteins are essential molecules in our bodies, responsible for various functions such as building tissues, facilitating chemical reactions, and defending against diseases. They're composed of long chains of amino acids, which are like beads on a string.

Why Does Shape Matter? The specific 3D shape of a protein determines its function. Just as a key must have the correct shape to fit into a lock, a protein must fold into the right shape to perform its role effectively.

The Challenge: Predicting how a protein folds based solely on its amino acid sequence has been a significant scientific challenge for over 50 years. This difficulty arises because a single protein can fold into an astronomical number of possible shapes, making it nearly impossible to determine the correct structure through trial and error.

How AlphaFold Addresses the Problem
What Is AlphaFold? AlphaFold is an artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by DeepMind, a research lab specializing in AI. It was designed to predict the 3D structures of proteins accurately and efficiently.

How Does It Work?

1. Learning from Data: AlphaFold was trained on a vast database of known protein structures. By analyzing these examples, it learned patterns and relationships between amino acid sequences and their corresponding 3D shapes.
2. Making Predictions: When given a new amino acid sequence, AlphaFold uses its learned knowledge to predict the most likely 3D structure of the protein. It does this by considering how similar sequences have folded in the past and applying complex algorithms to model the folding process.
3. Assessing Confidence: AlphaFold also provides a confidence score for each part of its prediction, indicating how certain it is about the position of each amino acid in the 3D structure.

Impact of AlphaFold
Scientific Advancement: AlphaFold's ability to predict protein structures with high accuracy has revolutionized the field of biology. It has significantly accelerated research by providing insights into protein functions and interactions without the need for time-consuming laboratory experiments.

Medical and Environmental Applications
• Drug Discovery: Understanding protein structures helps in designing drugs that can interact precisely with target proteins, leading to more effective treatments.
• Disease Research: AlphaFold has contributed to understanding diseases by revealing the structures of proteins involved in various conditions, including COVID-19.
• Environmental Solutions: By studying proteins that can break down pollutants, researchers can develop methods to address environmental challenges.

Use case 2)
When occupants of the house turn TV, Fridge, lights, oven, etc. , it generates a unique signature in electric surges.
By analyzing the timing and sequence of these appliance signatures, companies can make educated guesses about the occupants' behaviors:
• Wake-up Times: If the coffee maker and bathroom lights are consistently turned on around 6:30 AM, it's likely that's when the household wakes up.
• Meal Times: Regular use of the microwave or oven around noon and 7 PM can indicate lunch and dinner times.
• Entertainment Habits: Turning on the TV every evening around 8 PM suggests a routine of watching television during that time.
• Bedtimes: A significant drop in power usage, especially from lights and electronic devices, around 10 PM migh ont indicate bedtime.
Over time, these patterns can reveal daily routines, the number of people in the household, and even the presence of children based on appliance usage like gaming consoles or nightlights.

Use case 3)
AI-Powered Mind Reading (kind of...)
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin created an AI model that reconstructs what people are thinking—just by scanning their brain activity with an fMRI machine.

fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging. It's a non-invasive imaging technique. When a specific area of the brain is more active, it consumes more oxygen. To meet this increased demand, blood flow to that region increases. fMRI detects these changes in blood oxygenation and flow, allowing researchers and clinicians to identify which parts of the brain are involved in particular mental processes.
• It doesn’t decode exact words.
• But it can summarize the general meaning of what someone is thinking without them speaking a word. A good example is it can tell if u are thinking of apple or hammer.
• Example: A subject thinks about a scene where a man walks into a room and grabs a soda—and the AI outputs a sentence like “He went into the kitchen and got a drink.”

Use case 4)
FaceAge AI can predict your age by looking at your face. (https://faceage.ai/)

Use case misc.)
AI now replaced rat dissection; AI can read human emotions by reading facial landmarks key position; AI used by HR staff to find potential candidates by sifting through resumes and this saves time; AI detects breast cancer better than radiologists (in some studies).
Use case 6) AlphaEvolve model from DeepMind attempted to solve over 50 open problems in mathematical analysis, geometry, combinatorics and number theory. In roughly 75% of cases, AlphaEvolve "rediscovered" best-known solutions, and in 20% of the cases, it improved upon these solutions.

AI is Everywhere
• Agriculture: AI monitors soil health via satellite; check for deforestation
• Healthcare: AI is analyzing patient histories to predict future illnesses.
• Disaster Response: AI maps out damage after earthquakes using drones + satellite images.
• Criminal Justice: Predictive policing (controversial—mention the ethical concerns).
• Shocker: AI is used to generate legal documents, journalism articles, and paintings that get exhibited in museums.