Darpa Awards Ginkgo Bioworks and Transcriptic $9.5M to Bring AI into the Lab

You can rapidly screen (using robotics) the phenotypic space of a wide range of (genetically engineered) mutant organisms (yeast or bacteria) and feed that data into deep neural networks to ultimately predict from input DNA sequences, conditions --> phenotype. You will probably even be able to apply a reinforcement learning algorithm to optimize a particular phenotype/outcome. Ultimately, the AI will be able to do this in a self contained system.

Quantum leaps in the sense of physics have nothing to do with the Planck length, or “smallest” units in any sense. Quantization isn’t about small (although in practice it is), but about discrete changes with no values “in between” transition. What makes a quantum leap a quantum leap, is that the energy levels an electron may occupy are not continuous.

Incidentally, while it’s true that no current theory describes physics below the Planck length, it’s not true that said distance scale is somehow a limit on scale. It may be true that the Planck scale is the scale at which spacetime becomes “foamy” although it’s just a conjecture. It’s also possible that scales far below the Planck scale exist. We don’t know.

Or perhaps a reference to the cult television series of the same name starring Scott Bakula.

I assumed a discontinuous translation by the standard amount. Which is true of every press release writeup where the standard quantum is 0.

I'm using the metaphorical definition.