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AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#31

Post by convolvatron »

idontwantthis wrote: post #27
hoppp wrote: post #19

The 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.

That’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.

its 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.

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#32

Post by estearum »

falcor84 wrote: post #6
wild_pointer wrote: post #3

Betteridge's law strikes again

Wait, why are you not worried?

It'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.

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #13

Something 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 fr…

[deleted]

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#35

Post by dgellow »

colingauvin wrote: post #2

No, 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)_/¯

That doesn’t invalidate the point, you’re just saying it’s already a risk

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#37

Post by timr »

estearum wrote: post #5
timr wrote: post #4

The 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.

You 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.

No, you literally cannot. Synthesizing a stretch of DNA is trivial, and what you can send away for [1].

Building a functional virus is not even remotely a turn-key operation. Assuming you could get the genome, expressing that genome in a way that results in infectious virus is non-trivial.

[1] Even then, the companies will rarely give you long enough reads to make a full genome scaffold. It looks like there are two companies that will do 50-100kb assemblies as a service today, but I guarantee you they're going to look at what you're trying to make, and who is asking them to do it.

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#38

Post by rbliss »

timr wrote: post #37
estearum wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You 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.

No, you literally cannot. Synthesizing a stretch of DNA is trivial, and what you can send away for [1]. Building a functional virus is not even remotely a turn-key operation. Assuming you could get the genome, expressing that genome in a way that results in infectious virus is non-trivial. [1] Even then, the companies will rarely give you long enough reads to make a full genome scaffold. It looks like there are two c…

Yet.

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#39

Post by estearum »

idontwantthis wrote: post #27
hoppp wrote: post #19

The 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.

That’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.

My 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.

Re: AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?

#40

Post by [deleted] »

estearum wrote: post #14
transcriptase wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes 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.

What 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?

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