AI in drug discovery: Applications, opportunities, and challenges

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an umbrella term for a whole host of different approaches and technologies that revolve around the use of advanced computational approaches that can emulate (parts of) human decision making. Today, the discipline within AI that receives most attention and acclaim is machine learning (ML), focused on enabling computers to learn from experience as opposed to following a direct programing that instructs them what to do. Over the past years, AI (and especially ML) has increasingly found its way into healthcare in general, and drug discovery and development in particular.