Scientists are sounding the alarm after artificial intelligence (AI) developed viruses not naturally occurring in nature.
Dr. Thomas Inglesby and Dr. Moritz Hanke from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University wrote in their commentary piece in the journal Science, “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.”
According to the experiment, reported by the BBC, researchers trained AI models to identify patterns of DNA in nature and then wrote designs for new viruses. Scientists “established a framework for generating and evaluating thousands of AI-generated genomes, nearly 300 of which we chemically synthesized and tested in laboratory conditions, yielding 16 viable phages,” the study’s results indicate.
“Our results demonstrate that generative models capture evolutionary constraints in DNA sequences with enough fidelity to produce complete bacteriophage genomes divergent from those observed in nature and with prespecified traits,” the conclusion states.
A separate study found that AI is also capable of developing vaccines.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge note that the development marks the first time a vaccine with an active component has been entirely designed using computer simulations and then tested in humans. The vaccine’s trial used 39 healthy volunteers and targeted Sarbeco coronaviruses, a group of viruses found in nature. “The vaccine triggered immune responses in the volunteers not only to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS, but to related bat viruses that could potentially jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics,” a report from the University of Cambridge says.
