Artificial Intelligence Has Solved One of the Biggest Questions in Science – Teach Me About Science

Humans are curious by nature, so they are always looking for answers to all the questions that arise regarding any intriguing topic, especially those that we may consider “out of our reach” due to lack of possibilities to find them.

And it is precisely the need to know that has driven humans to investigate and formulate hypotheses about subjects to which there were no answers until now, such as, for example, the origin of life on Earth. Scientists like Charles Darwin, who was one of the pioneers in providing theories on the possible formation of life on our planet, contributed good ideas that are considered a fact by the scientific community to this day: that is, his theory of evolution by natural selection. By. However, not only did this bring him fame as an influential scientist, but also an idea about how life could have formed on Earth, which he expressed 150 years ago in a letter addressed to his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker : :

“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism now exist that could ever have existed. But if (and oh, what a great thing it is) we can imagine in some warm little pond with all kinds of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, that a protein compound is made up chemically, and also Presently, such a substance would be readily swallowed or absorbed, which would not have happened before the formation of living beings.

Currently, thanks to various techniques that we can use to help us investigate and clarify the doubts that may arise, it is possible to have an idea about the origin of life on Earth. One of these technologies is Artificial Intelligence, which was asked about how life emerged on our planet. And we are going to show you the results we got below.

Theories about the origin of life on Earth from ChatGPT

When this artificial intelligence was asked a question, GPT-3.5 gave 4 answers and GPT-4 gave 5 answers.

Both agree with the theory of panspermia, which states that life came to Earth from outer space via meteorites, comets, or space dust, based on the presence of molecules found in these objects and the potential habitability of other planets. .

Similarly, he referred to abiogenesis, which proposes that life on Earth arose directly through the combination of inorganic molecules under specific conditions of temperature, pressure, and energy, leading to the complex and gradual formation of organic molecules. , the first living cells.

He also mentioned the RNA world hypothesis, which predates DNA, as well as the hydrothermal theory, which suggests life may have begun in seafloor hydrothermal systems.

Other artificial intelligences, such as Google’s Gemini, provided only one concrete answer: panspermia and abiogenesis; Microsoft Copilot proposed the theory of panspermia and added prebiotic chemistry: “Experimental research on the origin of life began in the 1950s with the work of two pioneering scientists in the discipline called prebiotic chemistry: Stanley L. Miller and Joan Oro. In the great chemistry laboratory that was the primitive Earth, the first organic molecules were synthesized, which were arranged to become progressively longer and more complex.

And although the chemical origin of water was also mentioned, Gemini did not provide further details about it, only stating that it is a theory with great acceptance by the scientific community.