Artificial intelligence has been used to design brand-new viruses for the first time, sparking urgent biosafety warnings. Researchers confirmed that AI can successfully create never-before-seen viruses, with potentially harmful consequences.
Breakthrough and Risks
AI designed 16 whole genomes that are fully functional and replicable in a laboratory. The strains were created to infect bacteria and pose no human risk, according to reports. While the breakthrough could revolutionise the treatment of deadly diseases, the new territory also comes with potential dangers.
In commentary accompanying the scientific journal report, Dr Moritz Hanke and Dr Thomas Inglesby, of the Centre for Health Security at John Hopkins University, said it raised urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions.
Expert Warnings
The research showed that generative viral genome design is no longer a theoretical concept, but it remains to be seen whether it can be used without enabling serious harm, they added. They specified that new viruses with the potential to cause disease should not be pursued and outlined safeguards to circumvent danger.
These included conducting the research in a secure laboratory and excluding viruses with the capacity to infect complex organisms from the training database.
AI Model and Reactions
The researchers used a naturally occurring phage, a type of virus that infects bacteria, as a template on which to generate thousands of genomes using AI. The study's authors relied on an AI model called Evo, which bears similarities to ChatGPT, with Evo predicting molecular building blocks where its counterpart predicts sequences of text.
Professor Marc Güell, of Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, told the BBC: "[For the] first time in history, we are beginning to design biology on a computer. [It] allows us to dream of exciting possibilities for tackling humanity's greatest challenges."
Social media commentators reacted with alarm to the prospect of digitally-created viruses. One wrote: "This is like one of those audio logs you find in an abandoned lab in a post-apocalyptic survival game." Another added: "They had better be building and testing these [in] some isolated lab with zero contact to the outside world." A third said: "AI designing functional viruses is one of those 'wow this is incredible' breakthroughs that takes about 30 seconds of thinking to become deeply concerning."
