Earlier this year, I worked on a comic adaptation of a nuanced paper, written by a group of prominent computer scientists in consultation with subject-matter experts, about how we could shape the future of AI. The paper is called Shaping AI’s Impact on Billions of Lives, and the project was done in collaboration with the Laude Institute. The paper is divided into sections, and when working on the science section, I was surprised to learn that AI had already had some meaningful impacts on scientific discoveries.

Illustration that says, "AI has already supported huge scientific developments in recent years: the first image of a black hole, better weather prediction," The illustration shows a black hole and a storm cloud, tornado and wind gust.

Illustration says "improved flood forecasting, and contrail reduction are among other peer-reviewed and published studies enabled by AI." Illustration shows a flood plane and someone pointing to planes asking "where are the white tails"?

The one I found myself thinking about the most, may not be the most influential, but it will be an easy one to track: the reduction of contrails, those airplane-tail clouds in the sky. I find myself looking up at them wondering when that research will become a reality and actually reduce those banners in the sky.

Illustration says, "This is only the beginning of AI-powered scientific breakthroughs." Illustration is of a sun rising behind a horizon with some buds.

Illustration says, "With current experiments using the more powerful recent AI models, the velocity of scientific discovery is about to accelerate."

The last panel of this section may be my favorite of the entire project.

Illustration says, "we could see 100 years of progress in a single decade." Drawing shows a field of beautiful flowers, under a full sun.

It references a prediction by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's, in his "Machines of Loving Grace" essay. He writes that

"powerful AI could at least 10x the rate of these discoveries, giving us the next 50-100 years of biological progress in 5-10 years."

We’ll see how it all pans out as time goes on. Hopefully, in the arena of science, it’s mostly for the better.

You can read more about this Research Paper Comic on my portfolio page.