Gary Marcus amplifies critique: Dario's 'AI-driven biological discovery' wouldn't pass a PhD committee
GaryMarcus · x · 2026-09-24
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced a Claude-led discovery of a molecular machine that may represent a new gene editing mechanism, admitting its function and significance are unclear but calling it work he'd be proud of as a PhD student.
Commenter zivravid, amplified by Gary Marcus, pushed back sharply: Dario, a former PhD student, knows the significance level of such a result — if he'd walked into his advisor's office with 'we found an interesting system but don't know what it does' and said he was ready to graduate, he'd have been kicked out. Yet with an IPO around the corner, the same thing becomes 'AI is starting to drive biological discovery.'
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