{"id":183497,"date":"2025-10-07T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/183497\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T15:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:34:11","slug":"artificial-armageddon-ai-can-now-be-used-to-design-brand-new-viruses-sparking-fears-it-could-come-up-with-a-catastrophic-bioweapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/183497\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Armageddon? AI can now be used to design brand-new VIRUSES – sparking fears it could come up with a catastrophic bioweapon"},"content":{"rendered":"

It sounds like the start of a sci\u2013fi film, but scientists have shown that AI<\/a> can design brand\u2013new infectious viruses\u00a0the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experts at Stanford University in California<\/a>\u00a0used ‘Evo’ \u2013 an AI tool that creates genomes from scratch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amazingly, the tool was able to create viruses that are able to infect and kill specific bacteria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Study author Brian Hie, a professor of computational biology at Stanford University, said the ‘next step is AI\u2013generated life’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the AI viruses are ‘bacteriophages’, meaning they only infect bacteria and not humans, some experts are fearful such technology could spark a new pandemic or come up with a catastrophic new biological weapon<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eric Horvitz, computer scientist and chief scientific officer of Microsoft<\/a>, warns that ‘AI could be misused to engineer biology’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘AI powered protein design is one of the most exciting, fast\u2013paced areas of AI right now, but that speed also raises concerns about potential malevolent uses,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘We must stay proactive, diligent and creative in managing risks.’<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In a world first, scientists have created the first ever viruses designed by AI, sparking fears it such technology could help create a catastrophic bioweapon (file photo)<\/p>\n

In the study, the team used an AI model called Evo, which is akin to ChatGPT, to create new virus genomes \u2013 the complete sets of genetic instructions for the organisms.<\/p>\n

Just like\u00a0ChatGPT has been trained on articles, books and text conversations, Evo has been trained on millions of bacteriophage genomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers evaluated thousands of AI\u2013generated sequences before narrowing them down to 302 viable bacteriophages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study showed 16 were capable of hunting down and killing strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli), the common bug that causes illness in humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It was quite a surprising result that was really exciting for us, because it shows that this method might potentially be very useful for therapeutics,’ said study co\u2013author Samuel King, bioengineer at Stanford University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because their AI viruses are bacteriophages, they\u00a0do not infect humans or any other eukaryotes, whether animals, plants or fungi, the team stress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some experts are concerned the technology could be used to develop biological weapons \u2013 disease\u2013causing organisms deliberately designed to harm or kill humans.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Feldman, a computer science and biology researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology, said there is ‘no sugarcoating the risks’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In the study, the team used an AI model called Evo, which is akin to ChatGPT, to create new virus genomes (the complete sets of genetic instructions for the organisms)<\/p>\n

What are bioweapons?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Bioweapons are toxic substances or organisms that are produced and released to cause disease and death.<\/p>\n

Bioweapons in conflict is a crime under the 1925 Geneva Protocol and several international humanitarian law treaties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But experts worry AI could autonomously make dangerous new bioweapons in the lab.\u00a0AI models already work autonomously to order lab equipment for experiments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘AI tools can already generate novel proteins with single simple functions and support the engineering of biological agents with combinations of desired properties,’ a government report says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Biological design tools are often open sourced which makes implementing safeguards challenging.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

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‘We’re nowhere near ready for a world in which artificial intelligence can create a working virus,’ he said\u00a0in a piece for the\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘But we need to be, because that’s the world we’re now living in.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Venter, biologist and leading genomics expert based in\u00a0San Diego, said he would have ‘grave concerns’ if someone ‘did this with smallpox or anthrax’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘One area where I urge extreme caution is any viral enhancement research, especially when it’s random so you don’t know what you are getting,’ he told MIT Technology Review<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In their paper, published as a pre\u2013print in bioRxiv<\/a>, the Stanford team acknowledge ‘important biosafety considerations’ and emphasize the ‘safeguards inherent to our models’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, they ran tests to ensure the models couldn’t independently figure out genetic sequences that would make the phages dangerous to humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Tina Hernandez\u2013Boussard, a professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said these models are ‘smart’ enough to navigate such hurdles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You have to remember that these models are built to have the highest performance, so once they’re given training data, they can override safeguards,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The researchers evaluated thousands of AI\u2013generated sequences before narrowing them down to 302 viable bacteriophages or ‘phages’ (viruses that infect bacteria). Pictured,\u00a0viable generated bacteriophage genomes from the study<\/p>\n

In another new study, researchers at Microsoft have revealed AI can design toxic proteins that might\u00a0might evade safety screening systems in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their study, published in the journal Science<\/a>, warned AI tools could be harnessed to generate thousands of synthetic versions of a specific toxin \u2013 altering its amino acid sequence while preserving its structure and potentially its function.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Study author Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft, warned that there are ‘multiple ways in which AI could be misused to engineer biology’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘AI powered protein design is one of the most exciting, fast\u2013paced areas of AI right now, but that speed also raises concerns about potential malevolent uses,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘We expect these challenges to persist, so there will be a continuing need to identify and address emerging vulnerabilities.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

WHAT IS SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY AND WHAT ARE THE DANGERS?<\/a><\/p>\n

Synthetic biology, a field that creates technologies for engineering and creating organisms, is being used for a variety of purposes that benefit society.<\/p>\n

Applications include treating diseases, improving agricultural yields and dealing with the negative effects of pollution.<\/p>\n

However, the technology also poses many harmful uses that could threaten people, according to to a review of the field.<\/p>\n

Advances in the area of synthetic biology mean existing bacteria and viruses can be engineered to be much more harmful in a short space of time.<\/p>\n

Recreating viruses from scratch, making bacteria more deadly and modifying microbes so they do more damage to the body are deemed the three most pressing threats.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although malicious application of this synthetic biology might not seem plausible now it will become achievable in the future and could lead to the creation of biological weapons, or bioweapons.<\/p>\n

Ex-Nato commander James Stavridis has previously described the prospect of advanced biological technology being used by terrorists or ‘rogue nations’ as ‘most alarming’.<\/p>\n

He said that it could lead to an epidemic ‘not dissimilar to the Spanish influenza’ a century ago.<\/p>\n

He claims biological weapons of mass destruction with the ability to spread deadly diseases like Ebola and Zika could wipe out up to a fifth of the world’s population.<\/p>\n

In 2015, an EU report suggested that ISIS has recruited experts to wage war on the West using chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It sounds like the start of a sci\u2013fi film, but scientists have shown that AI can design brand\u2013new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,776,97,696,124,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-183497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-dailymail","13":"tag-microsoft","14":"tag-sciencetech","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}