AI designs new virus not found in nature

Stanford researchers have used generative AI to design a synthetic virus that doesn't exist in nature — a first in artificial intelligence, Axios reports. The team published their work in Science, describing an AI model that designed viruses capable of infecting and killing E. coli bacteria. While the research could lead to breakthroughs in fighting bacterial infections, the same technology could potentially be weaponized for biological threats. Johns Hopkins health security experts point out a bigger problem: existing regulations focus on manipulating natural pathogens, leaving AI-driven research — evolving at breakneck speed — essentially ungoverned. As they wrote in Science, "the ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists, but the governance to safely steer it does not."

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton