AI made 16 brand-new viruses

 

ork? If your understanding of biology stops at mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell, just know that Evo was trained on over 9 trillion nucleotides—the building blocks of DNA and RNA—in an attempt to notice patterns that humans have yet to recognize:

  • After gobbling up nature’s beautiful code, the program spat out about 700,000 potential genome combinations.
  • Scientists at Stanford University and the Arc Institute tested 285 of those recipes they deemed viable, and 16 of them grew real-life viruses that have never been produced before.

Not all viruses are bad. The rhino, corona, and noro varieties aren’t great, but doctors use engineered viruses to fight drug-resistant bacteria and genetic diseases. Researchers have long manufactured viruses to better understand how they work, and AI could potentially make that work easier.

But…there are fears that a bad actor—or a scientist without adequate guardrails—could use the tech to design a bioweapon. The researchers also warned that this kind of study shouldn’t be used on risky pathogens that can cause infections in humans, like malaria.—MM

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