Anthropic's molecular biology lab says Claude agents found a CRISPR-like enzyme; mechanism questioned
anshulkundaje · x · 2026-09-24
Anthropic announced its molecular biology lab's first result: 950 Claude agents spent 21 hours searching DNA sequence databases until one flagged a tandem repeat array next to an RT gene, later confirmed as an uncharacterized CRISPR-like enzyme system of unknown function; the lab works only at low biosafety levels.
Niko McCarty pushed back: host-pathogen interactions gave us CRISPR and restriction enzymes, but tools become useful only once their mechanisms are understood and engineerable — announcing before any mechanistic work undermines the significance.
Related event: Anthropic's New Bio Lab: Claude Discovers CRISPR-Like Enzyme System(53 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Few investors are pricing in the consumer-vs-enterprise agent arms race, says investor — robleclerc · 2026-09-24
- Blogger claims Opus 5.5 described its own inner awareness in a self-evaluation prompt — VoidStateKate · 2026-09-24
- VC Jenny Fielding: open source is nearly caught up, OpenAI and Anthropic will get crushed — markjeffrey · 2026-09-24
- Point-by-point rebuttal of Scott Alexander: AI monitoring far from solved — austinc3301 · 2026-09-24
- The Pope's AI adviser warns of 'cartel' behavior among big AI labs — SimiaCode · 2026-09-24
- Why math is infinite but art may be scarce in the AI era — wordgrammer · 2026-09-24