Why AlphaFold is Not Like AlphaGo
AlphaFold2 is the second major iteration of a protein structure predictor by Google-owned DeepMind Lab. DeepMind is famous for creating AlphaGo Zero, the first game-playing system to transcend the rules taught by human trainers. When AlphaFold2 made a significant leap in protein prediction accuracy in the fourteenth annual CASP competition, even reserved publications like Nature were noticeably breathless in their praise of the results. It was not just the impressive and well-proven leap in prediction accuracy that made AlphaFold2 notable, but also its association with the DeepMind brand and implicitly with the beyond-human learning successes of AlphaGo Zero. But is this latter component of its notoriety and acclaim justified? That is, beyond superficial name similarities, is the design of AlphaFold2 sufficiently like that of AlphaGo Zero to enable a similar leap ahead of human knowledge and expertise? An analysis of the underlying designs says no. In contrast to the fully virtualized, faster-than-human learning speeds of AlphaGo Zero, the learning speed of AlphaFold2 remains firmly attached to and limited by human experimental time. AlphFold2 thus is inherently incapable of the trans-human leaps in learning speed demonstrated by AlphaGo Zero.