Genome language models design working viruses

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. These ones only infect E. coli and pose no threat to people, the researchers told the BBC. It is the first time AI designed a complete genome that works. Phages are studied as a treatment for infections that antibiotics no longer stop, so new designs can be useful.

But the same capability can be aimed at other things. In a commentary in Science, Thomas Inglesby and Moritz Hanke of Johns Hopkins University write that the findings raise “urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions”.

I have read the summary of the article, not the full text.

Of all the developments in the dossier, this one can most clearly serve both good and harmful ends. Here the gap between what a lab can do and what a regulator can see is also the widest. As far as I know, no European or American AI rule currently applies to a model that designs biology.