Module 01 of 6
AI and Science: AlphaFold
How AI is changing scientific discovery, using AlphaFold’s protein structure predictions as the case.
Draft, to be confirmed by Dr. John.What you’ll do.
- Put AlphaFold’s breakthrough at the centre of a Futures Wheel.
- Map what follows directly from it, then what follows from those.
- Reach the third order, where the consequences stop being about biology.
The method
Futures Wheel
Start with one change in the centre of a page. Ring out the things that follow directly from it, then ring out the things that follow from those. By the third ring you are usually a long way from where you started — and that is the point: most of what a breakthrough changes is never the thing it was built to change.
PositiveNegativeMixed or uncertain
The change selected
AlphaFold predicts protein structures in minutes
4 direct consequences mapped. Ask of every node: if this happens, what happens next?
Method source: Jerome C. Glenn, 1971