AI designs new viruses (and in theory, bioweapons). The AI arms race is existential.
Posted by freedomforall 1 week ago to Technology
Excerpt:
"Last month a team created 16 entirely new viruses with the help of AI
These are not viruses you and I could catch, they only infect a bacteria called E.Coli. But if they wanted to make a virus that could infect humans, it could soon be a lot easier and faster than it would have been back in the prehistoric era of say, 2019. This should make anyone sit up and pay attention.
...
AI can leapfrog over thousands of generations of trial and error evolution
Before Large Language Models, a research team had to culture real viruses in the laboratory, and they had to do it again and again to generate random mutations. One experiment ran for 13,000 generations and took six months. That team found the virus had accumulated 11 new mutations every 20 days. Then they’d have to test each mutant to see if it behaved the way they hoped, but it was all so random. Now they just ask the AI, which is trained on millions of genomes from all domains of life. It generated and evaluated thousands of different genomes, and narrowed the list to 300. The team synthesized these 300 different viruses in the lab and tested them to find 16 entirely new viable viruses. That’s never been done before.
AI doesn’t merely accelerate evolution. It proposed a genome on the other side of an evolutionary gap without nature having to walk through all the intervening generations.
In theory, if they dumped these new viruses into people, swamps or chicken pens which had the right E.Coli, they might peter out in a day, infecting a few bacteria and vanishing. But it’s also possible it could eventually spread far and wide — a right nightmare for E.Coli. These new viruses could live on and spread in perpetuity, killing a lot of EColi along the way until the bacterium evolved some resistance, after which the virus would mutate to counter that.
I asked one AI if this was correct and it replied at length expanding on it, until seconds later it suddenly deleted its own answer and said “This content can’t be shown”. We’re especially careful with request6s involving biological research and applications that could pose safety risks.” Well that sure makes me feel safe…"
"Last month a team created 16 entirely new viruses with the help of AI
These are not viruses you and I could catch, they only infect a bacteria called E.Coli. But if they wanted to make a virus that could infect humans, it could soon be a lot easier and faster than it would have been back in the prehistoric era of say, 2019. This should make anyone sit up and pay attention.
...
AI can leapfrog over thousands of generations of trial and error evolution
Before Large Language Models, a research team had to culture real viruses in the laboratory, and they had to do it again and again to generate random mutations. One experiment ran for 13,000 generations and took six months. That team found the virus had accumulated 11 new mutations every 20 days. Then they’d have to test each mutant to see if it behaved the way they hoped, but it was all so random. Now they just ask the AI, which is trained on millions of genomes from all domains of life. It generated and evaluated thousands of different genomes, and narrowed the list to 300. The team synthesized these 300 different viruses in the lab and tested them to find 16 entirely new viable viruses. That’s never been done before.
AI doesn’t merely accelerate evolution. It proposed a genome on the other side of an evolutionary gap without nature having to walk through all the intervening generations.
In theory, if they dumped these new viruses into people, swamps or chicken pens which had the right E.Coli, they might peter out in a day, infecting a few bacteria and vanishing. But it’s also possible it could eventually spread far and wide — a right nightmare for E.Coli. These new viruses could live on and spread in perpetuity, killing a lot of EColi along the way until the bacterium evolved some resistance, after which the virus would mutate to counter that.
I asked one AI if this was correct and it replied at length expanding on it, until seconds later it suddenly deleted its own answer and said “This content can’t be shown”. We’re especially careful with request6s involving biological research and applications that could pose safety risks.” Well that sure makes me feel safe…"
All Comments
- 1Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 days, 14 hours agoGOD help us, . . . or is it too late, already?| Permalink
- 2Posted by mccannon01 6 days, 22 hours agoYeah. One AI engine says, "This content can't be shown." while another AI engine says, "Here ya go...".| Permalink
