this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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43
World’s first AI-designed viruses a step towards AI-generated life (www.nature.com)
submitted 1 week ago by flango@lemmy.eco.br to c/technology@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Scientists used AI to write coherent viral genomes, using them to synthesize bacteriophages capable of killing resistant strains of bacteria.

http://archive.today/Sy0LV

There are ethical concerns of AIs being used to design viruses that can harm humans. But Kerstin Göpfrich, a biophysicist and synthetic biologist at Heidelberg University in Germany, says that this problem — known as the dual-use dilemma — is not unique to AI, but is always a concern in biology. “I think in research in general you always have a dual-use dilemma. There’s nothing specific about AI, and you can always use progress for the better or for the worse,” she says. The authors addressed biosafety concerns in the manuscript. They say that they excluded viruses that affect eukaryotes, including humans, from the Evo models’ training data. The ΦX174 phage and E. coli host systems they studied were also non-pathogenic and have ”a long history of safe use in molecular-biology research”, the researchers write in the study.

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[–] fargeol@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

That sounds like a newspaper you find in a post-apocalyptic game

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ, this is a terrible idea!!

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Cheers

drinking-shut-up-liver-meme-638906334

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

We’ve already inadvertently created antibiotic-resistant bacteria—what happens when bacteria evolve resistance to AI?

[–] verdi@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago

This is not an actual breakthrough. We already have faster, cheaper and more effective ways of doing what they did, with better results. It's called mutagenesis, it's dirt cheap and has much better yield than 16 out of 302. Considering they paid 12-16 cents per nucleotide for the synthesis, this was a massive waste of taxpayer money to promote a project based on the buzzword du jour.

[–] Sgarcnl@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

IMHO a step forward. Designing organisms leads to unraveling some of what nature has hidden so well.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Great! Lets make something as deadly as bubonic plague and spread as fast as covid! /s

(We're so gonna die)

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What could possibly go right.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Ah shit here we go again.png

[–] cashsky@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse...

[–] captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org 2 points 1 week ago

Can we just not, ok science? We can’t even get people to take the vaccines we create.