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For obvious reasons, 2020 will not go down as a good year. At the same time, it has brought more scientific progress than any year in recent memory — and these advances will last long after Covid-19 as a major threat is gone.
Two of the most obvious and tangible signs of progress are the mRNA vaccines now being distributed across America and around the world. These vaccines appear to have very high levels of efficacy and safety, and they can be produced more quickly than more conventional vaccines. They are the main reason to have a relatively optimistic outlook for 2021. The mRNA technology also may have broader potential, for instance by helping to mend damaged hearts.
Other advances in the biosciences may prove no less stunning. A very promising vaccine candidate against malaria, perhaps the greatest killer in human history, is in the final stages of testing. Advances in vaccine technology have created the real possibility of a universal flu vaccine, and work is proceeding on that front. New CRISPR techniques appear on the verge of vanquishing sickle-cell anemia, and other CRISPR methods have allowed scientists to create a new smartphone-based diagnostic test that would detect viruses and offer diagnoses within half an hour.
It has been a good year for artificial intelligence as well. GPT-3 technology allows for the creation of remarkably human-like writing of great depth and complexity. It is a major step towards the creation of automated entities that can react in very human ways. DeepMind, meanwhile, has used computational techniques to make major advances in protein folding. This is a breakthrough in biology that may lead to the easier discovery of new pharmaceuticals.
One general precondition behind many of these advances is the decentralised access to enormous computing power, typically through cloud computing. China seems to be progressing with a photon method for quantum computing, a development that is hard to verify but could prove to be of great importance.
—Bloomberg