AI Creates 16 New Viruses, Raising Both Medical Hope and Misuse Concerns

Scientists have used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to generate new viral genomes that differ from any known natural virus and are capable of targeting specific hosts. While this scientific breakthrough brings new hope to the field of medicine, it has also raised severe concerns regarding its potential misuse.

The research paper was recently published in the journal Science. According to the paper, genetic sequences served as the language learning medium for the AI tool ‘Evo,’ functioning similarly to how ChatGPT and other large language models are trained on vast amounts of existing data.

Scientists from Stanford University and the Arc Institute then utilized this AI to generate thousands of genome combinations within a specific framework. Out of these thousands of AI-designed genomes, the researchers synthesized and tested around 300 viruses in the laboratory. They discovered that 16 of them were functional or live viruses.