Scientists Raise Safety Concerns After AI Used To Design New Viruses

Scientists have raised concerns about biosecurity after artificial intelligence (AI) was used to design new viruses.

Dr. Thomas Inglesby and Dr. Moritz Hanke from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University authored an Aug. 6 commentary piece in the journal, Science examining biosecurity in relation to AI-generated viral genomes, according to the BBC. In their commentary, the pair of doctors responded to the results of a study in which a team of researchers used AI to design bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and replicate inside bacteria, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website.

“Although this is promising for life sciences applications, it also raises urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions. The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not,” Inglesby and Hanke wrote in the commentary piece.

The doctors also questioned whether generative viral genome design can be used without “enabling serious harm.” Inglesby and Moritz said new, disease-causing viruses “should not be pursued.”

AI used to design brand new viruses - but experts fear a lot could go wrong: 'Urgent biosafety questions' https://t.co/ihuQ02vFod pic.twitter.com/EOZ9qORgf9

Brian Hie, an assistant professor at Stanford University, and Samuel King, a PhD student, were part of the team who conducted the study in which generative AI was used to design bacteriophages. The team used genome language models Evo 1 and Evo 2 to generate phage genomes for E. coli bacteria. The team tested 300 of the AI-generated genomes and identified 16 phages that were successful in killing E. coli bacteria, according to the same study.

Hie reacted to the study’s results.

“This is a next step in the complexity that’s designable by generative AI, this is the first time generative AI has been used to design a complete genome, it’s something that can replicate and have other functions inside cells… this was new territory for us,” he said, according to the BBC. (RELATED: Nvidia Backs $100,000,000 Push To Spread AI Across College Campuses)

Prof. Patrick Cai, chair of synthetic genomics at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, offered a similar sentiment.

“The significance extends far beyond phages – it suggests that genome language models are beginning to learn the design principles encoded by evolution, opening the door to AI-assisted genome writing,” he told the BBC.

The results of the study follow a renewed interest in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as the White House’s COVID-19 coordinator under President Joe Biden, said he now believes the pandemic was the result of a lab leak.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), cast doubt on the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic began at a wet market, according to his diary entries released by Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.