AI drug design debate: thalidomide's lesson shows clinical trials still matter

basedjensen · x · 2026-10-11

A debate on AI-designed drugs: one user cites thalidomide — where an enantiomer sign error caused birth defects — to question claims that verification is solved while verifiers are being made jobless.

basedjensen pushes back: we don't even know how half our drugs work, but clinical trials exist for a reason — nobody is injecting millions of people with a drug from a "cocktail machine," AI-designed or otherwise.

Related event: Debate Erupts Over AI-Designed Drugs No One Can Explain(3 posts)→

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