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Get low (ldl cholesterol’s model)
An experimental genetic therapy known as VERVE-101 can deactivate a cholesterol-raising gene in individuals with hypercholesterolemia, Meghan Rosen reported in “Base enhancing can decrease ldl cholesterol” (SN: 1/27/24, p. 8).
Rosen wrote that researchers are testing to see what dosage of VERVE-101 is simplest. Provided that the therapy edits a gene, reader Linda Ferrazzara puzzled why the dose issues.
Too low a dose might imply that not sufficient VERVE-101 makes it to the liver, the place it turns off the gene, Rosen says. If too few cells have the gene switched off, sufferers won’t expertise the drug’s cholesterol-lowering results. If levels of cholesterol stay excessive after an preliminary therapy, a second infusion of the drug might assist, Rosen says. However the builders favor for the therapy to be one dose.
Reader Jack Miller requested whether or not VERVE-101 impacts germ cells, which give rise to sperm and egg cells.
In mice, scientists have discovered that a lot of the drug results in the liver, and none goes to the germ line, Rosen says. The offspring of handled mice are additionally unaffected by the drug. So if the kids of handled sufferers even have hypercholesterolemia, these youngsters would nonetheless want their very own therapy, she says.
AI etiquette
To develop higher safeguards, scientists are finding out how individuals have tricked AI chatbots into answering dangerous questions that the AI have been skilled to say no, akin to learn how to construct a harmful weapon, Emily Conover reported in “Chatbots behaving badly” (SN: 1/27/24, p. 18).
Reader Linda Ferrazzara puzzled if AI chatbots have been skilled on languages apart from English.
AI chatbots like ChatGPT are primarily based on giant language fashions, or LLMs, a kind of generative AI usually skilled on huge swaths of web content material. Most of the largest, most succesful LLMs proper now are tailor-made to English audio system, Conover says. Though these LLMs have some capability to put in writing in different languages, most of their coaching knowledge is in English. However there are language fashions designed to make use of different languages, she says. Efforts up to now have targeted on languages which might be extensively spoken and written, and for which giant quantities of coaching knowledge can be found, akin to Mandarin.
Ferrazzara additionally requested if boosting computing energy may assist the bots higher defend towards trickery.
LLMs already use lots of computing energy, and it’ll solely enhance as individuals use LLMs increasingly more, Conover says. However even when elevated energy would make establishing safeguards simpler, we have to acknowledge that greenhouse fuel emissions linked to such energy-intensive calculations contribute to local weather change, she says. “The time and vitality wanted to reply to a chatbot question just isn’t one thing we need to overlook whereas ready for computer systems to enhance.”
Most of the defensive strategies described within the story display for dangerous questions. Reader Mike Speciner puzzled if filtering the responses to these questions can be simpler.
Some filters like this are already utilized on some chatbots, Conover says. For instance, Microsoft’s Bing AI tends to chop off its solutions if it wades into forbidden territory. These filters are extra common, reasonably than focused particularly at one type of assault. “To keep away from letting unhealthy stuff slip by, they might solid too large of a internet, filtering out innocuous solutions in addition to harmful ones and making the person’s expertise worse,” Conover says. What’s extra, an attacker who is aware of how the LLM’s self-filtering works might determine a option to idiot that filter.
Correction
“Saving lives with secure injection” incorrectly described Elizabeth Samuels of UCLA as an epidemiologist and emergency drugs doctor (SN: 2/10/24, p. 16). She is an emergency and habit drugs doctor. That story additionally mistakenly said that drug coverage advisor Edward Krumpotich helped write the 2023 laws in Minnesota that licensed funding for an overdose prevention heart. He advocated for that laws however didn’t assist write it.
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