Scientists Use AI to Design New Viruses, Raising Promise and Biosecurity Concerns

Artificial intelligence (AI) was just used to create brand-new viruses, prompting echoes of both hope and fear across the political spectrum.

Equal Parts Hope and Terror: Every outlet covering the AI biological milestone highlighted both the plausible benefits to such research as well as the concerns. The Guardian (Left bias) said the "breakthrough offers hope for new medicines but also raises urgent biosecurity questions." The New York Times (Lean Left) said the study "goes well beyond duplicating viral genes," explaining how AI was coached "to recognize patterns of DNA structure in nature, and then to use that data to write recipes for entirely new viruses." The Daily Wire (Right) said that the breakthrough could be used by doctors to "successfully fight antibiotic-resistant superbugs and deliver targeted gene therapies," but added that "some biosecurity experts are warning of dark possibilities." The Independent (Lean Left) said "The results have inspired equal parts hope and terror about the future of AI-inflected biology."

Plausible Benefits: According to researchers cited by The Independent, "The newly created viruses showed promise in overcoming resistance from their hosts, suggesting similar methods could be used to develop medication targeting tuberculosis and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus."

No Guardrails: The study, according to The New York Times "adds to growing worries that artificial intelligence might enable the creation of a new generation of biological weapons, from deadly poisons to unstoppable pandemics." Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Dr. Moritz Hanke believes "governments and scientific organizations have been slow to develop guardrails that could block the creation of a deadly virus—even as the science races ahead." The Daily Wire highlighted recent federal guidelines "restricting high-risk laboratory research," but explained that these guidelines "stop short of prohibiting purely computer-based bio-design, leaving AI-created DNA blueprints in a regulatory gray zone."

Gain-Of-Function: Both The Guardian and The Independent cited professor of synthetic genome engineering at Imperial College London Tom Ellis saying "the threat from full AI design and writing of a genome of a virus or bacteria is very overblown when we consider that just taking existing pathogens and making gain-of-function changes to their genomes is so much easier and much more likely to be a real pathogenic threat."

New Creations: The viruses created by scientists at Stanford University and the Arc Institute using an OpenAI model called Evo pose no threat to humans. This is because they are bacteriophages resembling what is known as Phi X-174, which is only capable of infecting bacteria such as E. coli. The AI generated 700,000 potential DNA recipes, of which the scientists chose 285 to synthesize. Of the 285 DNA molecules, only 16 were viable, tested by inserting them into bacteria spread across petri dishes. According to the study, the new viruses were just as resilient as natural ones, with some multiplying even faster than Phi X-174.

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