The AI industry is suddenly rife with existential fears, with senior figures claiming it could "kill us all" within a decade.
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it → claim → decade
Dario Amodei, CEO of one of the world's largest AI companies, Anthropic, has called for a "slowdown" of AI development to prevent it outrunning our control.
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it → call → control
One particular fear is that AI could develop a dangerous biological agent, or a bioweapon.
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AI → develop → agent
At the same time, biologists are showing AI can help them with useful research – including those employed at Anthropic, who have just announced AI has helped them discover a new class of enzymes they claim "could represent a new gene editing mechanism".
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they → show → mechanism
Why does AI raise the danger of bioweapons?
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AI → raise → bioweapons
Labs around the world have had the tools to make dangerous biological agents, like viruses, for decades.
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Labs → have → decades
But few people have known how to use those tools, and all of them are scientists who have spent years building their qualifications and credibility.
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who → know → qualifications
Brendan Walker-Munro, a security researcher at Southern Cross University, says AI changes this.
"
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AI → say → this
It's lowering those knowledge barriers."
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It → lower → barriers
David Heslop, a public health researcher at the University of New South Wales, says the speed of AI progress makes him "very concerned".
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him → say → progress
"The tools are advancing at a rate which means that human oversight is becoming challenging," Dr Heslop says.
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Heslop → advance → rate
An advanced AI model could give a user outside traditional systems the information required to make a bioweapon.
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model → give → bioweapon
It could be a virus or it could be a bacteria, it could be a fungus, it could be something we've never seen before."
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we → see → ?
Equally dangerously in Dr Heslop's opinion, an AI tool like a large language model (LLM) could help a bad actor plan to deploy dangerous material, including pre-existing viruses or toxins.
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actor → help → viruses
Such work would still need a level of expertise and tens of thousands of dollars of lab equipment.
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work → need → equipment
"We're not at the point, yet, where the LLM gives you a superpower," Dr Heslop says.
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Heslop → give → superpower
But it's certainly something that could be done in a laboratory."
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that → do → laboratory
AI could also be used to attack broader public health systems, like hospital infrastructure.
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AI → use → infrastructure
David Kainer, a computational biologist at the University of Queensland, says the same tools applied to plant science could "potentially destroy large amounts of food production".
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tools → say → production
"You could imagine something similar happening to engineer super-pathogens for crops.
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something → imagine → crops
"
What sorts of biological threats has AI enabled?
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AI → enable → threats
There are several cases where AI has already been used to help design dangerous biological agents.
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AI → be → agents
In 2022, researchers at the Collaborations Pharmaceuticals company showed they could use their company's AI software to make dangerous toxins.
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they → show → toxins
The company's AI tool was used to screen out drug candidates with high predicted toxicity.
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tool → use → toxicity
But the team found they could instruct it to do the opposite, designing new toxins in a matter of hours.
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they → find → hours
In its recent threat intelligence report, Anthropic highlighted five examples of people using its products "in ways that could support biological weapons development".
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that → highlight → development
Anthropic's models were used to do things like draft grant applications and analyse data in research that made human viruses more contagious, and venoms and toxins more deadly.
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venoms → use → research
All of these users, according to Anthropic, were "working scientists" outside the US using unauthorised software to gain access to the US versions of their products.
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scientists → accord → products
Anthropic banned the users for violating supported region policies.
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Anthropic → ban → policies
Biologists have used AI for positive purposes.
AI program Alphafold, for instance, has been used to predict the shape of proteins for medicinal research, winning its creators the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Alphafold → use → Chemistry
More recently, US researchers used generative AI to design new bacteria-infecting viruses which could become treatments against infection.
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which → use → infection
Dr Kainer and his colleagues have developed an autonomous AI tool to help with agricultural research.
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Kainer → develop → research
Their tool collates vast amounts of data to make networks that biologists can use to predict how environmental or genetic changes might change a plant's features.
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changes → collate → features
"AI, if constructed and used correctly in a clever way, can do that process in an hour instead of six months," Dr Kainer says.
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Kainer → construct → months
It's not easy to tell if someone's intentions are malicious when they use AI for biological research.
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they → tell → research
"The analyses you would try to do would look very similar, in my opinion, to work done for beneficial purposes," Dr Kainer says.
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Kainer → try → purposes
He believes controls put up by AI companies to prevent misuse are constraining biological work.
"Right now, biologists are not reaping the benefits of the most powerful AI models that are commercially available.
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that → believe → models
What can reduce the risks?
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What → reduce → risks
Commercial LLMs have safety controls which are designed to prevent their use for dangerous purposes.
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which → have → purposes
Dr Heslop says these guardrails are the right step, but laws and regulations are needed as well.
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laws → say → ?
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
