1,946 AI agents analyzed a brain atlas in 32 minutes
Why it matters
OpenAI, PerturbAI and Scripps Research ran 1,946 GPT-Rosalind AI agents in parallel on a whole-brain CRISPR (Perturb-seq) atlas showing how gene disruptions affect cells across the mouse brain, built from millions of cells. Each agent took one gene disruption: it analyzed the cell responses, searched the literature and proposed explanations. The parallel run finished in 32 minutes; the team's illustrative (not measured) estimate for comparable human analysis is months to a year. At the largest workload, a single agent cited 11 references while the distributed agents kept about 711 times more, and blinded human experts preferred the distributed-agent reports 75% of the time. One lead: disrupting Dctn1, the gene whose mutations cause Perry syndrome, raised cholesterol-making genes, raising the question of whether restoring normal cholesterol distribution could help protect neurons. Caveat: this is a bioRxiv preprint (posted Oct 16), not yet peer-reviewed, and the proposed mechanisms still need experiments.
Read the source: OpenAI / bioRxiv (opens in a new tab)
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