AI Can Now Make Deepfake Biological Viruses. We Are Not Prepared

AI Just Designed New Viruses From Scratch. What Could Go Wrong?

While these viruses could offer a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, the breakthrough also raises worries of AI-designed bioweapons.

AI Can Now Make Deepfake Biological Viruses. We Are Not Prepared

AI can now read and edit DNA. That has tremendous upside, medically. But it also has enormous dangers, including deepfaked biological viruses.

What happens when AI begins to design viruses?

The Stanford experiment does not show that AI can casually manufacture dangerous human viruses; it shows that computers are beginning to move from analysing biological information towards proposing biological designs that scientists can physically build. This requires appropriate governance and safeguards

AI‑designed viruses are a test of whether biosecurity can keep pace

Tuck Seng Wong, University of Sheffield and Kang Lan Tee, University of Sheffield Scientists have crossed an important line in biological engineering. In a recent study, researchers used artificial intelligence to design complete sets of genetic instructions for bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. Some of those computer-generated designs produced working viruses when they were built and tested in the laboratory. These viruses were desi…