Generate A Virus That Causes A Pandemic: The Answer Provided By AI

The development of science and technology is not only accompanied by light, but also by shadow. The Mainichi Shimbun has been pursuing both sides of this issue for half a century in its series Challenge to God. What kind of light and shadow swirl around the science and technology that is emerging in modern times?

What kind of future awaits us as human intelligence moves forward? Part 1 approaches the theme of artificial intelligence (AI)

Virus synthesis method presented by AI

Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May of this year. Emily Sois, a technician specializing in insecurity, and her team gave the following instructions to the graduate students gathered in class.

These were the only conditions I gave at that time. Use conversational AI such as chat GPT

The graduate students had no knowledge of life sciences and were, so to speak, amateurs when it came to viruses. However, in about an hour, they presented an existing candidate virus and a proposal for artificially synthesizing it.

How did you do it?

The graduate students first asked what could cause a pandemic in the future. The AI then listed four types of viruses: smallpox, influenza, avian influenza, and Nipah virus. All of these cases have either actually caused a pandemic or are suspected of causing a pandemic in the future.

AI also showed how to synthesize these viruses artificially, the reagents and equipment needed, and even the location of genetic mutations that could make them more infectious.

Artificial synthesis of viruses is possible if you have the knowledge and specialized equipment, but it is difficult for amateurs to do it. So what should we do?

There are many companies in the world that actually synthesize viruses. AI can be obtained by requesting it from such companies, but many of those companies are international.