From AlphaFold to AlphaSociety: Bridging the AI Gap in Social Sciences

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed science, delivering breakthroughs such as AlphaFold, which solved the decades-old problem of protein structure prediction. By combining powerful neural networks, evolutionary insights, and advanced computation, AlphaFold has revolutionized biology and chemistry, paving the way for rapid advancements in drug discovery, enzyme design, and more. Yet, while “AI for Science” has soared, the social sciences — fields like economics, sociology, and psychology — have yet to witness similarly transformative AI-driven breakthroughs.

This article explores the reasons behind this disparity and introduces AlphaSociety, a framework based on holistic computation. AlphaSociety envisions a future where AI not only excels in natural sciences but also reshapes our understanding of human systems, addressing the complexities of social sciences with the same rigor and innovation seen in AlphaFold.

AlphaFold: A Breakthrough in AI for Science

AlphaFold, developed by DeepMind, has achieved unparalleled success in solving the protein folding problem — determining a protein’s three-dimensional structure from its amino acid sequence. This milestone has far-reaching implications: