| | | | |  | | By Carmen Paun, Ruth Reader, Daniel Payne and Erin Schumaker | | | | | 
Wenstrup is hopeful AI can do the job risky research does now. | AP | | | "If not now, very soon in the future, we won’t need to be doing gain-of-function research for anything." Rep. Brad Wenstrup, chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic | | Artificial intelligence could make the case for gain-of-function research obsolete, the chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), told Carmen. Wenstrup is eager to see it. He leans toward the theory that a leak at a Chinese lab conducting gain-of-function research — which aims to enhance pathogens by making them more deadly or more easily transmissible to study how to develop vaccines or drugs to fight them — caused the Covid-19 pandemic. “Most of the evidence would point toward that, just considering the actions of the Chinese,” he said in an interview, arguing that AI could do the job without the risk. Others believe Covid more likely resulted from an animal infecting a person. Hope in AI? Wenstrup, a podiatric surgeon before he became a lawmaker, isn’t a scientist, but he talks the talk. “It all comes down to amino acids, receptor-binding domains, furin cleavage site and then you can probably gauge some predictability,” he said.
| | | | CONGRESS OVERDRIVE: Since day one, POLITICO has been laser-focused on Capitol Hill, serving up the juiciest Congress coverage. Now, we’re upping our game to ensure you’re up to speed and in the know on every tasty morsel and newsy nugget from inside the Capitol Dome, around the clock. Wake up, read Playbook AM, get up to speed at midday with our Playbook PM halftime report, and fuel your nightly conversations with Inside Congress in the evening. Plus, never miss a beat with buzzy, real-time updates throughout the day via our Inside Congress Live feature. Learn more and subscribe here. | | | | | | | | | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Studies prove what many people instinctively know: that holding hands helps our brains know we’re not alone in confronting life’s problems, reducing stress, the Washington Post reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  The latest smoking cessation tool is a bot. | AP | Microsoft and researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle have teamed up to create a chatbot that helps people quit smoking. Quitbot is a text-based bot that offers users insight into what they can expect during the smoking-cessation process. Before Microsoft’s involvement, the bot gave canned responses. Now, it’s built on a limited version of ChatGPT that can answer queries more specifically. Researchers found that people trying to quit smoking used the ChatGPT-enhanced Quitbot for an average of 72 days. That’s 30 percent longer than when the bot just gave stock answers. Why it matters: Though cigarette smoking is at an all-time low in the U.S., 1 in 5 adults use some form of tobacco. Smoking is linked to almost 90 percent of lung cancer cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Quitbot shows impressive engagement, Jonathan Bricker, professor of cancer prevention at the Fred Hutch, told Ruth. Now he wants to see whether it will actually help people quit. In 2019, his research found 30 percent of test subjects had stopped smoking for at least 30 days after using the lower-tech version of Quitbot. He suspects the new version will do better. What’s next? Bricker has just completed recruitment for a trial involving 1,670 people across all 50 states. Researchers will follow up with participants after a year to see how many have quit smoking. In the meantime, Quitbot is free and available to the public.
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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is bringing together AI stakeholders. | Markus Schreiber/AP Photo | A new consortium of businesses, government agencies and universities are working to improve artificial intelligence safety at the behest of the Department of Commerce, POLITICO's Mohar Chatterjee reports. Among the health care organizations and government agencies that have joined the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium are the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins University and Kaiser Permanente. “I want American companies, from the smallest to the largest, and all of our workers and employees, to be the most competitive, best trained, most productive in the world,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters last week. “And to do that, we have to lead in AI.” The U.S. AI Safety Institute, part of the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, will house the consortium. The group's goals dovetail with the priorities President Joe Biden outlined in his executive order on AI last year, including developing guidelines for AI risk management, safety and security. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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