Anthropic 生物实验室发现可与 Crispr 相比的新酶系统

Anthropic 表示，其 AI Claude“自主发现”了一种新的酶系统，其机制与强大的基因编辑工具 Crispr 背后的相关机制相似。这是 Anthropic 新近启动的湿实验室取得的首项成果，也是该公司准备上市之际，对 Claude 在科学研究中实用价值的一次早期检验。

该公司称，Claude 在检索一个规模庞大的 DNA 序列数据库后发现了这一酶系统，并表示其科学家所参与的工作仅限于最初的提示词设定和实验室工作。

Anthropic 称，在 21 小时内，近 950 个 Claude Agent 处理了 2.1 亿个 token，随后其中一个 Agent 在数据集中发现了异常的重复模式，并将其标记为需要人工审查。后续分析和实验室测试发现，这是一种“此前未被表征、存在于噬菌体中的酶系统”；噬菌体是一类感染细菌的病毒。

Anthropic 表示，仍在研究该酶系统的具体功能，但认为“尽早分享此类发现非常重要，这既能展示 Claude 的能力，也能让更广泛的社区了解我们正在开展的工作。”

尽管 Anthropic 将该发现与 Crispr 作比较，但这一发现是否会拥有任何实际应用、更不用说是否能像这项基因编辑技术一样带来变革，目前仍不清楚。这一坦言尚显过早的公告发布之际，Anthropic 正寻求吸引更多科学家加入其实验室，并向药物发现等领域扩张。

随着 AI 公司日益转向科学研究，以证明其能力更强的模型所具备的价值，这一推动也随之而来。与此同时，OpenAI 正在不断攻克难度越来越高的数学问题，却对该领域的学术规范和传统不太在意。

Anthropic says its AI Claude has “autonomously discovered” a new enzyme system similar to machinery behind the powerful gene-editing tool Crispr. It’s the first result from Anthropic’s newly-launched wet lab and an early test of Claude’s usefulness for science as the company prepares to go public.

The company says Claude found the enzyme system after searching through a massive database of DNA sequences, adding that its scientists’ involvement was limited to the initial prompt and lab work.

Over 21 hours, Anthropic said nearly 950 Claude agents worked through 210 million tokens before one spotted an unusual repeating pattern in the dataset and flagged for human review. Further analysis and lab testing revealed “a previously uncharacterized enzyme system found in bacteriophages,” a type of virus that infects bacteria.

Anthropic said it is still working to understand what the enzyme system does, but said it felt it was “important to share such findings early, both to demonstrate Claude’s capabilities and to give the broader community insight into what we’re working on.”

Despite Anthropic’s comparisons to Crispr, it remains unclear whether the discovery will have any practical applications, let alone be as transformative as the gene-editing technology. The admittedly premature announcement comes as Anthropic seeks to attract more scientists to its lab and expand into areas like drug discovery.

The push comes as AI companies increasingly turn to scientific research to prove the value of their more capable models. OpenAI, meanwhile, has been barreling through increasingly advanced mathematical problems with little regard for the academic norms and traditions of the field.