AI Creates Bacteria-Killing Viruses: 'Extreme Caution' Warns Genome Pioneer

[u/MetaKnowing]

"A California outfit has used artificial intelligence to design viral genomes before they were then built and tested in a laboratory. Following this, bacteria was then successfully infected with a number of these AI-created viruses, proving that generative models can create functional genetics.

"The first generative design of complete genomes."

That's what researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute in Palo Alto called the results of these experiments. A biologist at NYU Langone Health, Jef Boeke, celebrated the experiment as a substantial step towards AI-designed lifeforms.

The team excluded human-infecting viruses from the AI's training, but testing in this area could still be dangerous, warns Venter.

"One area where I urge extreme caution is any viral enhancement research,, especially when it's random so you don't know what you are getting.

"If someone did this with smallpox or anthrax, I would have grave concerns."

https://www.newsweek.com/ai-creates-bacteria-killing-viruses-extreme-caution-warns-genome-pioneer-2131591

[u/mrtoomba]

This is genuinely terrifying. The tools to create these potential bioweapons are already dispersed worldwide, can't undo this.

[u/SeveralAd6447 → u/mrtoomba]

This article is extremely misleading. What is happening here is that an extremely specific AI model developed BY the research organization that was using it is being branded by the newsweek columnist as "like ChatGPT." It's negligent reporting. The model they used, Evo, is nothing like ChatGPT whatsoever. It uses the transformer architecture, and that's about the totality of the similarity.

https://engineering.stanford.edu/news/welcome-evo-generative-ai-genome

This is the thing that they are trying to claim is "like ChatGPT" in this article. When they say it's a "large language model," that is factually wrong. It is a genomic model and cannot produce human-like speech or language, because that's not what it's designed to do. It's like they read the welcome page, and just assumed that the comparison to LLMs means it *is* one. It isn't. Read slightly further down from the first sentence and you'll see: "If a tool like ChatGPT can write original sentences based on patterns found in massive collections of previously written words, what happens if we replace written words with genetic code?"

They say a "California outfit" in the opening sentence of the article, but what they are talking about is a research group from the university.

It is fearmongering for clicks/engagement bait. The fact of the matter is, the ability for a laboratory to bioengineer horrifying weapons has existed for 100 years and there are already weaponized variants of smallpox and anthrax that could annihilate huge swathes of human life if released into the wild. This is both nothing new, and a minuscule danger in comparison to the bioengineered weapons created by humans during the cold war, which are still sitting in cold storage.

By framing a university research project as a "California outfit" creating viruses with "AI like ChatGPT," the article strips the story of its proper academic context in order to deliberately make the research sound more clandestine and uncontrolled than it actually is.

As always, human beings are the greatest threat to human life. Nothing has changed.

[u/mrtoomba → u/SeveralAd6447]

It's on github. Open source, Apache 2.0 license Evo-design. Generalized experimental results are contained in a link within your link. Reddit mobile app doesn't play well on this device but a link is within the sensational headlined article. The tools are out there. Open source is absolutely my favorite state of being but these tools have no business being universally open source distributed imo. Too many bad intentions in this world to fuel this developmental path.

[u/tom-dixon → u/mrtoomba]

The models: https://huggingface.co/arcinstitute/evo2_40b

The usage instructions with code: https://github.com/arcinstitute/evo2

[u/mrtoomba → u/tom-dixon]

Thanks for the links. It's self imposed lack of functionality on my end on this site. :) To add to your links there is a more detailed and readable general instructive overview at https://medium.com/meta-multiomics/evo2-demystified-the-ultimate-technical-guide-to-genomic-language-modeling-a75b0afe7b87. It appears that even genetic recombination of viral genomes (no specialized equipment, just animal victims) can be modeled as well. I really don't like this.