7 ms·
AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?
- colingauvin 2mo agoNo, a human could do (and have, many many many times, see like half of molecular biology) this as well. If anything this will help with vaccine development. Edit: I'm a PhD biochemist that has done a fair bit of virus modification. Love the downvotes. Never change HN. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- dgellow 2mo agoThat doesn’t invalidate the point, you’re just saying it’s already a risk
- colingauvin 2mo agoNo, I'm saying AI has not introduced any fundamentally new capabilities to anyone in this space. Making a virus that grows in a cell is one thing. Making a virus that is an existential risk to humans is altogether another and would require significant new capabilities that do not exist and are not likely to from these training data. (Pre-existing sequences).
- falcor84 2mo agoEnzymes haven't introduced any fundamentally new capabilities. Any reaction they catalyze could just happen on its own.
- estearum 2mo agoSame reason it couldn't be a problem to sell aerosolized anthrax at the hardware store. Humans have (many many times) made aerosolized anthrax. Can't see any conceivable problem with more people having access to it.
- nozzlegear 2mo agoI agree with you. I favor the view that humans are generally morally good when taken on the whole. There already exists the technology for ne'er-do-wells to engineer viruses and unleash them on the world. But I submit that A) there aren't many people who want to do that in the first place; and B) there's a vanishingly small amount of people who want to work with those people to help them achieve it.
- wild_pointer 2mo agoBetteridge's law strikes again
- falcor84 2mo agoWait, why are you not worried?
- estearum 2mo agoIt's super cringe and d e c e l to think technological advancement could have any dangers whatsoever. Just like in a car, the true demonstration of intelligence is closing your eyes and slamming the pedal to the floor.
- Alive-in-2025 2mo agoYou are describing some people driving with FSD today. I bet hundreds or maybe thousands of people a day try letting it drive for a while without paying any attention. The car watches your eyes to be sure you don't do this, but people try to defeat that too. Sunglasses make it hard to tell what's going on. I see it's still happening as of July 2026 - https://www.techtimes.com/articles/319863/20260707/sunglasses-defeat-teslas-safety-camera-bc-driver-asleep-100-km-h-two-kids.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/319863/20260707/sunglasse... https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/zt1kgt/anyone_have_any_tricks_so_you_dont_need_to_look/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/zt1kgt/anyone_... But even though there are a few people tricking the "are you paying attention" check, probably more people complain about it being too careful and overbearing.
- timr 2mo agoThe design was never the hard part. You still have to make the thing. Designing a modifcation to an existing virus is perhaps more achievable, but the implementation is still the hard part.
- estearum 2mo agoYou can literally send an email to one of hundreds of companies that do exactly this. They have no way of knowing whether you're asking them to synthesize a virus or a drug candidate or what.
- transcriptase 2mo agoYes in much the same way you can literally build a rocket and go to the moon. You may be skipping a few of the involved steps.
- estearum 2mo agoWhat involved steps are those? You email the RNA strand (a text file) to a lab along with some money. The lab converts that information into a physical object (read: virus) and sends it back to you in the mail. What step is missing?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- smallmancontrov 2mo agoThe part where that service doesn't exist and isn't close to existing.
- estearum 2mo agohttps://www.genewiz.com/public/services/gene-synthesis/custom-mrna-synthesis https://www.genewiz.com/public/services/gene-synthesis/custo... Distance from mailbox to live virus is a few days of bench work from a semi-competent biochemist. And yes, this service claims to have safeguards. Does every service? Does every future analogous service? Are those safeguards guaranteed to be robust against totally novel pathogens? Answers: No, no, and no.
- nullsanity 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- acjohnson55 2mo agoSomething I've been worried about for years is the proliferation of technologies that give ever smaller numbers of people with smaller amounts resources the ability to impact billions of people, in potentially irreversible ways. Combined with automation, this is a recipe for disaster. We're clearly lacking in the ability to regulate and govern ourselves, and real world market forces (as opposed to the hypothetical free market) encourage reckless aggressiveness at the level of companies and countries. Although, I must admit, as a doomer, I'm pleasantly surprised things aren't already worse than they are.
- andsoitis 2mo ago> proliferation of technologies that give ever smaller numbers of people with smaller amounts resources the ability to impact billions of people did you mean greater number of people with less resources? EDIT: thanks to others that point out how you can interpret this differently, which I think is: "it is now easier for smaller teams with fewer resources" rather than my original interpretation of "power is now concentrated so that fewer people can do this than before"
- estearum 2mo agoI had the same reaction, but I think they meant fewer as in "requires less consensus-building to wield meaningful power." Used to have to convince lots of people to go to war in order to kill a couple million people. Fast approaching a one- or two-man weekend project.
- gtowey 2mo agoNo, I think they mean that it used to take a giant lab full of specialists with lots of funding to do lots of damage before. Now, the worry is a lone nut in a basement with no money could pull off an act of bio terrorism.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- demibabs 2mo ago
- hoppp 2mo agoThe regulation at the DNA Printer level works I think, as long as nobody invents a good at home DNA printer, but if they do that there is no need for custom viruses, somebody can take an existing one that is known to be deadly and just print it.
- idontwantthis 2mo agoThat’s what I’m thinking. If we can restrict EUV technology to the West then why can’t we restrict DNA manufacturing? Not to the West in this case but to capable governments like with Nuclear power.
- convolvatron 2mo agoits not really a question of will, its a question of difficulty. if it were easy and cheap to build EUV processes, no amount of complaining and posturing would prevent someone from reproducing that.
- estearum 2mo agoMy understanding is DNA synthesis is now like a 2nd or 3rd year undergrad tier challenge and doesn't even require much specialized equipment. Versus EUV which one could dump literally unlimited amounts of money into solving and still probably fail for decades.
- morkalork 2mo agoI want to say I've already read some articles about hobbyists buying previous generation equipment from labs. The entire supplychain would need to be locked down with used equipment being returned to manufacturers for there to be any security.
- sscaryterry 2mo agoI saw a sweet electron microscope on eBay, for 2000 quid. If I had the space...
- 2mo ago
- _hlqj 2mo ago[flagged]
- mehraban 2mo agoYes, we should, but even here distribution is an serious issue.
- clickety_clack 2mo agoWere we safer when the viruses were object oriented?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ModernMech 2mo agoDoubly because they’ll also use AI to manage the AI pandemic response.
- SubiculumCode 2mo agoAI is an existential threat, full stop. It can also help us solve many of our greatest problems. Let's not let it solve those problems by removing us as the quickest shortcut.
- dataviz1000 2mo ago> AI is an existential threat So is nuclear annihilation. Yet, here we are. > "I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world." -- Ronald Reagan at the United Nations [0] We are going to be fine as long as we remember to be nice to each other, starting towards the people who are adjacent to us. [0] https://youtu.be/dYiUI6y1nKg?si=agkJpCEZj3m_WZz0&t=915 https://youtu.be/dYiUI6y1nKg?si=agkJpCEZj3m_WZz0&t=915
- mapBasketWand 2mo agoHaving recently read both of Annie Jacobsen’s books — _Nuclear War_ and _Biological War_ — I’m much more concerned about a bioweapon than a nuclear one. Her conclusion to the latter book comes out and says it, paraphrasing here: > Nuclear war is terrifying in its destruction, but the chain of command limits the risk of a rogue actor. Whereas bio weapons can be designed and manufactured in relatively low tech environments with equal or greater magnitudes of impact.
- baggy_trough 2mo agoThe good news is that bioweapons can’t kill everyone. A handful of percent will remain to repopulate the Earth.
- fooblaster 2mo agoNukes also cannot kill everyone. Nuclear winter was proven to not be based on solid evidence, the earth remains very habitable after all nukes have gone off.
- evilelectron 2mo agoGet ready for the next adventure in the saga of 12 Monkeys, with AI starts like Bruce Wills, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt and Christopher Plummer, coming to a bio lab around you. The experience of a life time one you can't miss, it is in the air.
- agaj-nimm 2mo ago[dead]
- Alive-in-2025 2mo agoI think it's certain that people will try recreating old viruses or making alternatives to them. It will be too easy. Make 5 variants of small pox, 5 variants of sars. Release them at once all around the world to make it hard to fight. It will be too easy for some crazy angry people to do this. I just hope that our defenses and ability to sequence them and respond.
- LPisGood 2mo agoI don’t think it will be easy. Making a virus involves far more than reading some instructions.
- Alive-in-2025 2mo agoI hope I'm wrong.
- rich_sasha 2mo agoDon’t we already have plenty of deadly viruses around? Why would you design a virus when rabies, anthrax and Ebola, for starters, exist in the wild?
- estearum 2mo agoNaturally evolved viruses tend to have a tradeoff between contagiousness and lethality (just because both features have to evolve somewhat simultaneously). Synthetic viruses have no such difficulty.
- PeterStuer 2mo agoIt is complicated, because the real question is about who gets to design the virusses, and who gets to design the antidotes.
- alpineidyll3 2mo agoThis happened a full year ago. A) you should immediately discount the expertise of people just learning this now B) a designed pathogen will kill a person this century, full stop, no way to prevent that. The people who invented fission were not so stupid they imagined the bomb wouldn't occur, indeed they assumed it would. I have no idea what became of the wisdom of those people. C) just like nuclear technology that doesn't mean a prohibition is called for. Intelligence is. What we _can_ do is invest in detection, rapid response technology (vaccines etc), and attempt to mitigate and stratify the possibilities of this happening in the worse ways. Today's knee jerk prohibitions, and fanciful notions of prohibition working are not facilitating those changes.
- ChrisArchitect 2mo agoRelated: AI Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49200213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49200213 Artificial Intelligence used to design new viruses https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49206642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49206642
- beyondscale-sha 2mo ago[flagged]