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LiveScience
LiveScience
Stephanie Pappas

AI can now be used to design brand-new viruses. Can we stop it from making the next devastating bioweapon?

An illustration of a grenade made out of computer keys.

Scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to build brand-new viruses, opening the door to AI-designed forms of life.

The viruses are different enough from existing strains to potentially qualify as new species. They are bacteriophages, which means they attack bacteria, not humans, and the authors of the study took steps to ensure their models couldn't design viruses capable of infecting people, animals or plants.

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