> It's likely that identifying molecules suited only to become bioweapons or publishing how to synthesize them will also fall under the same strictures, as nece

> It's likely that identifying molecules suited only to become bioweapons or publishing how to synthesize them will also fall under the same strictures, as necessary to ensure public safety. Certainly. However, here they have identified and published not the discovered molecules but only the identification process (and only in fairly broad strokes, at that), and shied away from working further on synthesis (we know enough to state that synthesis would be possible and practical for nearly any candidate molecule). Sure, as a society we can expand ethical guidelines to some sort of "thou shall not optimize for toxicity", but enforcing it poses some serious challenges, not least of which is the fact that this has demonstrated that the process works even with fairly innocuous and public training data. Expect to see a bunch of funding for research into technologies around toxin identification and detection, as well as the rapid creation and synthesis of antitoxins and other prophylactic measures (cheaper filtering, maybe). Perhaps even eventual (as in a decade out at least) "hardening" of organisms against toxicological weapons (possibly positioned as research into the mechanisms of acquiring pesticide resistance and similar).