Scientists unveiled the first AI-generated viruses.
Bespoke viruses are not new: For instance, “viral vector” therapies use engineered viruses to carry genetic code into cells. But the new research employed AI to generate entirely new genomes with far less human input, using a model trained on DNA sequences much like ChatGPT is trained on words.
The bacteriophage viruses it created are harmless to humans, but biological tools are always double-edged swords; the same abilities could be used to make deadly pathogens, and AI models can make that more easily available to less-skilled humans.
An AI safety campaigner once coined “Moore’s law of mad science”: “Every 18 months, the minimum IQ to destroy the world drops by one point.”