Big Pharma, the Pentagon, and Bill Gates should be delighted

from Redacted.inc

Photo Credit: Wired

Scientists have created the first functioning viruses designed by artificial intelligence, a breakthrough that could eventually help doctors fight antibiotic-resistant infections.

Or… wipe out the entire human race.

Researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute used generative AI models to produce 16 novel bacteriophages, complete, functional viral genomes that successfully infect and kill bacteria in the laboratory.

The researchers insist these AI creations “pose no threat to people.” How could they possibly guarantee that?

They can’t.

Others, like Prof Tom Inglesby and Dr Mori Hanke at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, express a more realistic view: “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.”

The researchers intentionally excluded genetic data from viruses that infect humans, animals and plants. But now that we’ve opened the door to these AI-designed viruses, who’s to say that technology won’t eventually be used as a bioweapon against other countries or the general population?

Given what the World endured during a pandemic caused by a virus unleashed on the public, it’s hardly something to celebrate as a scientific achievement. It’s alarming, to say the least.