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\t\t\tIllustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins \/ Futurism. Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
AI can now invent working biological viruses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In real world experiments, a team of Stanford researchers demonstrated that a virus with AI-written DNA could target and kill specific bacteria, they announced in a study<\/a> last week. It opened up a world of possibilities where artificial viruses could be used to cure diseases and fight infections.<\/p>\n But experts say it also opened a Pandora\u2019s box. Bad actors could just as easily use AI to crank out novel bioweapons<\/a>, keeping doctors and governments on the backfoot with the outrageous pace at which these viruses can be designed, warn Tal Feldman, a Yale Law School student who formerly built AI models for the federal government, and Jonathan Feldman, a computer science and biology researcher at Georgia Tech (no word on whether the two are related).<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no sugarcoating the risks,\u201d the pair warned in a piece for the Washington Post<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re nowhere near ready for a world in which artificial intelligence can create a working virus, but we need to be \u2014 because that\u2019s the world we\u2019re now living in.\u201d<\/p>\n In the study, the Stanford researchers used an AI model called Evo to invent DNA for a bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria. Unlike a general purpose large language model like ChatGPT<\/a>, which is trained on written language, Evo was exclusively trained on millions of bacteriophage genomes.<\/p>\n They focused on an extensively studied phage called phiX174, which is known to infect strains of the bacteria E. coli. Using the EVO AI model, the team came up with 302 candidate genomes based on phiX174 and put them to the test by using the designs to chemically assemble new viruses.<\/p>\n Sixteen of them worked, infecting and killing the E. coli strains. Some of them were even deadlier than the natural form of the virus.<\/p>\n But \u201cwhile the Stanford team played it safe, what\u2019s to stop others from using open data on human pathogens to build their own models?\u201d the two Feldmans warned. \u201cIf AI collapses the timeline for designing biological weapons, the United States will have to reduce the timeline for responding to them. We can\u2019t stop novel AI-generated threats. The real challenge is to outpace them.\u201d<\/p>\n That means using the same AI tech to design antibodies, antivirals, and vaccines. This work is already being done to some extent<\/a>, but the vast amounts of data needed to accelerate such pioneering research \u201cis siloed in private labs, locked up in proprietary datasets or missing entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government should make building these high-quality datasets a priority,\u201d the duo opined.<\/p>\n From there, the federal government would need to build the necessary infrastructure to manufacture these AI-designed medicines, since the \u201cprivate sector cannot justify the expense of building that capacity for emergencies that may never arrive,\u201d they argue.<\/p>\n Finally, the Food and Drug Administration\u2019s sluggish and creaking regulatory framework<\/a> would need an overhaul. (Perhaps in a monkey\u2019s paw of such an overhaul, the FDA said it\u2019s using AI to speed-run the approval of medications<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u201cNeeded are new fast-tracking authorities that allow provisional deployment of AI-generated countermeasures and clinical trials, coupled with rigorous monitoring and safety measures,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n The serious risks posed by AI virus generation shouldn\u2019t be taken lightly. Yet, it\u2019s worth noting that the study in question hasn\u2019t made it out of peer review yet and we still don\u2019t have a full picture of how readily someone could replicate the work the scientists did. <\/p>\n But with agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being gutted<\/a>, and vaccines<\/a> and other medical interventions being attacked by a health-crank riddled administration<\/a>, there\u2019s no denying that the country\u2019s medical policy and infrastructure is in a bad place. That said, when you consider that the administration is finding any excuse to rapidly deploy AI<\/a> in every corner of the government<\/a>, it\u2019s worth treading lightly when we ask for more.<\/p>\n