Could AI Create Deadly Biological Weapons? Let’s Not Find Out.

For as deadly as the coronavirus pandemic was, the next one could be more nightmarish. Powerful new artificial-intelligence models, combined with novel lab tools, could soon enable rogue scientists or states to engineer a pathogen that would spread faster, resist vaccines better and kill more people than Covid-19 did. Governments, technology companies and scientific researchers should act now to lower the risk.

Nature has always had the ability to concoct nasty pathogens, from the plague to the Spanish Flu. For many decades, so have humans: The Japanese conducted brutal biological warfare experiments in World War II; both the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled toxins during the Cold War, with the latter’s program continuing even after signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972. The Pentagon thinks Russia and North Korea continue to develop bioweapons.