AlphaFold was open sourced and made freely available for the world to use.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
True if, by December 2024, DeepMind had released AlphaFold's code as open source (for example the AlphaFold2 code released in 2021 under an open licence) and made its predictions freely available to everyone (for example through the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database). Mostly true if AlphaFold2's code and database were open and free but there were limits, such as model weights restricted to non-commercial use, or AlphaFold3 not being fully open as of December 2024. Mixed if only one of the two holds: the predictions were free but the code was not open sourced, or the reverse. Mostly false if access was mainly restricted, with only small parts released. False if neither the code nor the predictions were openly available.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 GitHub - google-deepmind/alphafold: Open source code for AlphaFold 2. GitHub (repository published by google-deepmind) · 17 June 2021 Own record
“While the AlphaFold code is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License, the AlphaFold parameters and CASP15 prediction data are made available under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.”
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E2 alphafold/afdb/README.md at c77e5d2a8961d1a353632c462914ff0a32a950f6 · google-deepmind/alphafold GitHub (repository published by google-deepmind) · 17 June 2021 Own record
“Data is available for academic and commercial use, under a”
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E3 AI protein-prediction tool AlphaFold3 is now more open Nature (Springer Nature) · 11 November 2024
“Correction 14 November 2024: An earlier version of this article stated that AlphaFold3 is now ‘open source’. This is not the case, as weights for the model can only be accessed upon request, and the code can only be used for non-commercial applications.”
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E4 AlphaFold: Five Years of Impact Google DeepMind · 25 November 2025 Own record
“The freely available AlphaFold Protein Database has accelerated science on a scale that was previously unimaginable.”
Reasoning
DeepMind's AlphaFold 2 repository states the code is licensed under Apache 2.0, with the parameters under CC BY 4.0 (E1). Its database documentation says the prediction data is available for academic and commercial use (E2). Nature's November 2024 correction says AlphaFold3 is not open source: its weights are available only on request and its code is limited to non-commercial use (E3). The criteria name exactly this case, AlphaFold2 open and free but AlphaFold3 not fully open as of December 2024, as mostly true.
Cite this claim
Demis Hassabis, “AlphaFold was open sourced and made freely available for the world to use.” (said December 2024). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_73509b5c8fb2, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_73509b5c8fb2
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Demis Hassabis
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Mostly true
“what’s important about them is their 3D structure.”
A protein's 3D structure is what determines, or partially determines, its function.
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Resolved true
“So over 3 million scientists are now using AlphaFold.”
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Resolved true
“Only about 10% of drugs actually get through all the clinical stages.”
Only about 10% of drugs get through all the clinical stages.
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Mostly true
“The AlphaFold Server is empowering non-commercial researchers globally to harness this technology, accelerating their ability to formulate and test new hypotheses.”
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Mostly true
“Our AlphaProteo model can design novel, high-strength protein binders that target diverse molecules – including those associated with cancer and diabetes.”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.