AI just made the first viruses that do not exist on Earth. 'That's how they create the next zombie virus,' netizens say

For the first time, scientists have made viruses using artificial intelligence that don't exist on Earth. The researchers behind the study hope to use it for medical breakthroughs, although this could also unfold a nightmare scenario where the technology is used to make deadly pathogens. People are not buying it, saying that COVID-19 possibly leaked from a lab, as claimed in several reports. So why would we do this with AI?

Known as bacteriophages, this group of viruses only infect bacteria. Researchers wrote in Science that the viruses were designed using an AI model and killed E coli bugs that cannot be eliminated by natural bacteriophages.

Dr Brian Hie, from Stanford University in California, used genome language models to design functioning genomes for bacteriophages. The viruses were then made in the laboratory and tested against E coli. The researchers state in the study that the ability to design genomes for specific bugs can "help overcome resistance, transform phage therapy and expand biotechnological toolkits." It could help control deadly bacterial infections.

However, experts have warned that this technology needs to be used cautiously as it raises "important biosafety, biocontainment and biosecurity considerations". Anyone designing whole genomes should do so in consultation with safety and security professionals throughout the project. The technology could be harnessed to develop more complex forms of life and even build biological weapons, they warned.

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Prof Tom Inglesby and Dr Moritz Hanke at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore wrote in an article, “Although this is promising for life sciences applications, it also raises urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions. The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not.”

How the team designed a virus in the lab

The team behind the breakthrough used AI models called Evo1 and Evo2 to design the new viral genomes and were trained on genetic data from 2 million bacteriophages. To remove the chances of designing dangerous viruses, the models were not trained on the genetic code for viruses that can infect plants, humans or other animals.

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After AI generated thousands of prospective genomes, scientists narrowed the field to nearly 300 and built them from scratch. They used host bacteria as living factories to read the code and assemble the new bacteriophages. While the survival rate was slim—only 16 came to life—a combined dose of these engineered phages quickly overpowered drug-resistant strains of E. coli.

Inglesby and Hanke said the work proved that generative AI could create functioning viral genomes. "Such genomes might encode new pathogens that … cannot be contained by existing countermeasures," they wrote. To ensure the technology is not used for wrong purposes, "safeguards around model development, responsible research review, and established laboratory biosafety and biosecurity" are needed.

People fear the tech can be weaponised

Meanwhile, netizens cannot believe that humans would actually make something that can trigger the end of the world. Reacting to the news, they asked why they would deliberately make viruses that they know can trigger a human crisis. A user wrote, "That's how it starts, until they produce the next zombie virus to destroy humankind."

Another wrote, "This is like one of those audio logs you find in an abandoned lab in a post-apocalyptic survival game." A user wrote, "It'll be a lab leak from a place like this. I don't know why people never learn. The hubris of the "scientists" will murder the masses." One of them stated, “The one commonality with every technological innovation since the dawn of man is that it's been weaponised.”