Hey, did you hear about some researchers from Google winning Nobel prizes? I thought Nobel prizes were for stuff like science and peace, not computers.

Yeah, it’s a big deal! Two researchers from Google’s DeepMind, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Their work helped understand how proteins fold using AI.

Wait, AI and chemistry? That sounds like mixing oil and water! How does AI even help with chemistry?

I get why it sounds weird! But proteins are super important for life, and understanding how they fold is really hard. AI, like the systems they built at DeepMind, can predict the structure of proteins, which is a huge breakthrough for science.

Ohh, so the AI is like a super-powered microscope for seeing proteins?

Kind of! It’s more like solving a puzzle. The AI can ‘see’ patterns and predict how the protein will fold, saving scientists years of work. But this is also where the debate comes in.

Debate? What kind of debate?

Well, some people argue that the Nobel prizes were originally meant for things like chemistry, physics, and medicine, not AI or computer science. Geoffrey Hinton, another AI expert from Google, won a Nobel Prize in Physics. But some people think his work is more about computers than actual physics.

So they’re saying AI is sneaking into areas it doesn’t belong?

Exactly. People are debating whether AI researchers should win prizes in fields like chemistry and physics. It’s hard because AI is helping solve problems in those fields, but AI itself isn’t chemistry or physics, you know?

Yeah, I see why that’s tricky. So, does this mean Google is, like, the king of AI now?

In a way, yes. Google has been a leader in AI, but it’s also facing a lot of pressure. Other companies like OpenAI are competing with them, and there’s talk of breaking up Google because of its power.

Whoa, so Google is both winning prizes and getting in trouble at the same time?

Pretty much! They’ve been under a lot of scrutiny for their control over the AI industry. Some people think Big Tech is getting too much power over research, while universities can’t keep up.

Sounds like AI is shaking things up in more ways than one.

Definitely. It's changing science, but also raising questions about who gets to lead those changes. It’s a big conversation that’ll keep going for a while.