doi.bio/halil_akin

Halil Akin

Halil Akin is a builder, researcher, and engineer. He grew up in Turkey and worked at two startups there before moving to the US. One of these startups became the nation's largest e-commerce firm. He also started his own startup during this time.

Akin worked at Meta for 7 years as a Machine Learning Engineer, focusing on NLP and Large Language Models. He is interested in the potential of large language models in science, particularly biology. This interest has led him to the biology-AI intersection, where he has read numerous biology papers and built biology-specific LLMs.

Akin believes that there will soon be significant breakthroughs in biology through AI and that we will develop models that can "understand" the language of biology, leading to significant implications for our understanding of health, disease, and longevity.

He holds a Twitter account with the handle @halilakin and is based in Menlo Park, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Halil Akin

Early Life and Education

Halil Akin grew up in Turkey and worked at two startups there before moving to the US. One of these startups became the nation's largest e-commerce firm. He holds a verified email address at cornell.edu, suggesting he attended Cornell University.

Career

Halil Akin worked at Meta for 7 years, focusing on NLP and Large Language Models (LLMs). He is particularly interested in the potential of LLMs in biology and has read many biology papers and built biology-specific LLMs. He believes that AI will soon be able to "understand" the language of biology, leading to significant breakthroughs in biology, health, disease, and longevity.

Beliefs and Philosophy

Akin believes that progress is inherently good for society and that it can happen faster than we think. He also thinks that focused bets with a well-funded, sizeable team can create exceptional progress. In addition, he highlights the importance of collaboration and a long-term exponential mission to overcome the bottlenecks that limit human cooperation.

Akin recognizes the importance of public goods and believes that creating public goods through our work can have a significant impact on the world. He also emphasizes the need to bridge the gap between short-term focused, extractive institutions and long-term oriented public institutions for sustainable progress.

Current Work

It is unclear what Halil Akin's current role is, but he is contactable via Twitter and has an email address at cornell.edu.

Halil Akin

Early Life and Education

Halil Akin grew up in Turkey and worked at two startups there before moving to the US. One of these startups became the nation's largest e-commerce firm.

Career

Halil Akin worked at Meta for 7 years, focusing on NLP and Large Language Models (LLMs). He is particularly interested in the potential of LLMs in biology and has read widely on the subject, building biology-specific LLMs.

He is currently based at Cornell University and can be found on Twitter @halilakin.

Beliefs

Akin believes that:

There will soon be significant breakthroughs in biology through AI
AI models will soon be able to "understand" the language of biology, leading to significant advancements in our understanding of biology, health, disease, and longevity
It is our moral duty to create progress in the world, and progress is good for society
Focused, high-conviction bets with a well-funded, sizeable team can create exceptional progress
In a world where AI can easily scale computation, the limits of human cooperation become a bottleneck for progress
This cooperation bottleneck can be fought with a committed and collaborative team working towards a long-term exponential mission
Most things are either highly overrated or underrated, and progress comes from recognising underrated truths or challenging overrated misconceptions
Science and public goods are underrated
Sustainable progress requires bridging the gap between well-funded, short-term-focused institutions and under-resourced, long-term-oriented public institutions
We are at the start of an exponential curve that's hard to grasp, and adaptability will be key in navigating future changes

Comparison to Dr Demir Akin

Did you mean to search for Dr Demir Akin? Dr Akin is a well-known expert in Nanobiotechnology and Nanomedicine and a pioneer interdisciplinary scientist in diagnostic and therapeutic micro/nano-fabricated devices. He is based at Stanford University.

Halil Akin

Early Life and Education

Halil Akin grew up in Turkey and worked at two startups there before moving to the US. One of these startups became Turkey's largest e-commerce firm. He holds a verified email address at Cornell.edu, suggesting he attended Cornell University.

Career

Halil Akin worked at Meta for 7 years, focusing on NLP and Large Language Models (LLMs). He is interested in the potential of LLMs in science, particularly biology. He has read widely in the field and built biology-specific LLMs.

Beliefs and Motivations

Akin believes that:

There will soon be significant breakthroughs in biology through AI.
AI models will soon be able to "understand" the language of biology, with significant implications for our understanding of biology, health, disease, and longevity.
It is our moral duty to create progress in the world, and progress is good for society.
Focused bets and a well-funded, sizeable team can create exceptional progress.
In a world where we can easily scale computation with AIs, the limits of human cooperation become the next bottleneck for exceptional progress.
We can fight the cooperation bottleneck with a committed and collaborative team working towards a long-term exponential mission.
There is nearly no absolute right or wrong; most things are either highly overrated or underrated.
The marketplace of ideas is like the stock market, with some ideas being overvalued and others undervalued by society.
Due to reflexivity, most ideas stray far from their true value and become either highly overrated or underrated.
Progress comes from recognising underrated truths or challenging overrated misconceptions, leading to paradigm shifts.
Science is underrated.
Public goods are underrated and improving them creates the most good in the world.
For sustainable progress, we must bridge the gap between well-funded, short-term-focused institutions and under-resourced, long-term-oriented public institutions.
Progress will only accelerate from here.
Adaptability will be key in navigating future changes.