Kara Santamaria

So the AI was able to figure out how to make the virus as good at spreading through a population as possible.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, yeah.

And we've got also, how can we recover live viruses from synthetic DNA?

There are large language models that can just walk somebody through that.

And so the main point here, there are a lot of main points, but one of the main points that stuck out to me, it was salient for me, is there was a study that showed basically...

What LLMs offer, even beyond ease of use, more efficiency, improved timelines for expert researchers, is that individuals without expertise

are more readily able to use these tools and that's a real concern because before there was a certain kind of bottleneck to doing bioterrorism that meant you just kind of had to be smart enough to do it right like you had to at least have the training to be able to use these tools efficiently and effectively but now you don't even need that so

Here is a statement by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology that was put out three years ago talking about bio risk.

They said that without AI, a scientifically knowledgeable user can follow existing protocols and produce known existing pathogens and toxins.

They can also develop novel or modified pathogens and toxins through directed experimentation.

With AI, a scientifically knowledgeable user can use biological design tools to design new or modified pathogens and toxins, or to evade screening or enhance production.

This could increase design efficiency, reduce physical burden.

And then chatbots could help brainstorm new approaches.

So this was 2023.

And then they mentioned that a scientifically naive user without AI...

often is just doing beginner friendly, you know, anarchist cookbook style stuff.

And they're probably more likely to produce a known existing pathogen or toxin.

They're not likely to modify something new or do too much cutting edge work.

And with AI through the use of these chat bots, they're probably still more likely to produce a known pathogen or toxin, but they may lower the perceived barrier.