Michael Levitt

Earth carries four kinds of intelligence: biological intelligence (BI) in the living world, cultural intelligence (CI) in human society, artificial intelligence (AI) in computers, and personal intelligence (PI) in each of us. Biology rewards diversity, not fitness alone. Culture rewards giving young people independence early, as Max Perutz and John Kendrew did for me in 1967 at the age of twenty. I trace what basic science became: antibodies for cancer, AI for drug design, and real-time analysis of COVID-19, where excess death tracked poverty and was nine times higher under age 65 in the USA than in Western Europe. Generative AI has gone from junior helper to colleague in 39 months, making ideas once too expensive to test cost minutes. My golden rule holds for machines as for people: nothing is true until evidence confirms it. AI has the answers, so bring the questions.