Scientists at Google's artificial intelligence arm DeepMind have developed a breakthrough tool that can predict whether genetic mutations are likely to cause harm. A human on average has 9,000 genetic mutations throughout their genome. While most are harmless, some can cause cancer, cystic fibrosis or damage brain development. Up until now, only four million mutations have been observed in humans by scientists, out of a possible 71 million such mutations. Additionally, only two per cent have been classified as disease-causing or benign. The Google AI tool, named, AlphaMissense, makes predictions about so-called missense mutations, where a single letter is misspelt in the genetic (DNA) code. Upon reviewing the mutation, the AI tool was able to predict 89 per cent of them, with 90 per cent accuracy. When the researchers set the programme's precision to 90 per cent, it predicted 57 per cent of missense mutations were probably harmless while remaining uncertain about the rest.