FellAsleepInSchool
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3j3ngevmo
Is THIS how A.I. takes over?
Aug 6, 2026 11:48 PM
FellAsleepInSchool
14384
243
31
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3j3ngevmo
Is THIS how A.I. takes over?
sevro77
Dammit the Virus Generator 3000 machine has been playing the Elden Ring DLC again!
L0rdinquisit0r
like their staticflickr.com/65535/51130033291_006be5f986_3k.jpg">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51130033291_006be5f986_3k.jpg Bacteriophage's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy is nearly a centuary old, used to be a soviet thing. fake pharges are the new thing.
Stefnos87
This is how 99,9999% of zombie movies start -.-
GwaboButt
Sweet. Can’t wait for COVID27 which will somehow be blamed on Obama or Biden.
thekeyofe
"Oh boy, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension!"
senyu
I mean... this is sort of what AI is really geared for, and has had AI in other iterations crunching it prior. It's a lot to process and perfect for AI, but if they're just feeding results into an LLM then that's just being lazy
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
it's not a chatbot - there are "genome language models"
YippeeKayakOB
smalltownking
Phages are great, actually. We could program viruses that attack cancers, bacteria, or even other viruses. And we could bespoke make them to know exactly how we want them to work. This could be the start of the end of infectious diseases.
JokenPo0079
Phages are, in fact, the keystone to gene therapy! We've been making and using them for decades at this point.
lonelyrangerofthedreams
BananaLover93
idk if that was an "intelligent" move
futhor
That's an 11/12 Monkey situation
alexstamat
11/12 monkey situation orchestrated by skynet.
iPez
I wouldnt worry about AI. I would worry about small illegitimate countries based on iron age religions based on xenophobia.
TrueNorthernLights
See, there's the problem, right there, plain as day. The AI was trained on viruses and AI. Why the fuck?
oblimo
This article is misleading, IMO. No one has hooked up an AI to a CRISPR and told it to put out novel viruses. The AI is generating digital models of novel viruses. The idea of AI creating recipes for CRISPR is scary enough without the article's vague language to imply that scientist are following those recipes to make real viruses.
RooGryphon
Is the corperation named Umbrella?
Segufixer
Oh FFS just cut to the chase and give me the damn blue pill already.
CuddlyCynic
DO YOU WANT THE MOVIE 28 DAYS LATER IRL?!
BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET THE MOVIE 28 DAYS LATER IRL!
Birdnose
But I mean… what could possibly go wrong?
DontNeedAWeatherManToKnowWhichWayTheWindBlows
I'm glad I'm old. The world is getting scarier and scarier every day.
DrewK98
"The resulting 16 novel viruses were created to ..."
Created to WHAT?!?! That's a hell of a place to cut that off.
OmenJones
rezpawner
How fucking tragic is it that the end of the human race comes from a bunch of nerd-ass techbros deciding to make their overengineered chatbots vibecode a fucking virus epidemic.
Camelspotting
These are Stanford grad students.
modus0
I say we dub it the "Altman Plague".
NozzleBozzle
what's worse is, you know in the histories it will record them as titans of visionary genius, rather than the narcissistic richboys that they are
rezpawner
Not sure why someone downvoted you for saying that, given that it's the truth, but imgur will be imgur I guess.
TChallaVanDam
eronth
But... why?
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
for gene therapy - engineered viruses are already being used: https://virologyresearchservices.com/2026/01/10/hacking-evolution-reprogramming-viruses-into-medicines/
eronth
Very neat stuff.
Lordenki40
Vibe Colding.
LengSpider
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1eHl1emMzb3VqaWJpNmVwMHliMXVkaHcxMTU3OWRwYmg3dW93MjA0YyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/dvILpBmtnrrrgVXT5x/200w.webp
mygodhasabiggerdick
allthetimewasted
CallMeCourierSix
You want Captain Tripps? Because this is how you get Captain Tripps.
Some asshole with an OpenAI subscription and a CRISPR editor is going to kill the entire human race.
thegarts
Is this from The Dark Tower?
CallMeCourierSix
Same author! Diff book. It's from The Stand.
therandombagofmeat
I think about Captain Tripps a lot in this post Covid world. If King were to rewrite the stand, we would have to see the Tripp deniers
J3lek
We were promised specifically the opposite of this.
SisyphusRollin
Nope, this is literally one of the most important functions of AI that is benefiting humanity en mass. Learn about why this would happen, we do this all the time in science to help cure illness and make life better. AI in this use case is helping cure fucking cancers, they just approved a new treatment for untreatable melanoma cancer. I'm stoked about this, this is awesome. This isn't LLM bullshit, this is advancing human health.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
designing therapies?
modified viruses are already being used as gene therapy vectors, and this is about engineering them from scratch: https://virologyresearchservices.com/2026/01/10/hacking-evolution-reprogramming-viruses-into-medicines
FellAsleepInSchool
"...pose no threat to people."
Do you honestly believe the next step won't be taken?
Camelspotting
I mean obviously yes. If bioweapons were considered useful they would already be used but you can't release them without hitting yourself.
thatlamer
Virologists do shit like this to better understand viruses, with the goal of using that understanding to better design treatment. Will someone inevitably use it for evil? Yes, and chances are they've been trying to figure out how regardless of the existence of benign virology labs somewhere.
SisyphusRollin
Spend a day learning about why this would happen, please.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
No time, OP has to post more sensationalism and politics (look at their profile)
JokenPo0079
Fun fact, we've been making viruses to help outselves for ages. If you've ever heard of "gene therapy" thats just human engineered viruses doing a job of editing our own genes in a way we want. There's a cool video of a guy on the Though Emporium youtube channel of him making a virus to fix his lactose intolerance.
AlienJeffries81
FellAsleepInSchool
That's a fair point, but A.I. involvement sounds like a bad idea. I admit that most healthcare professionals and scientists work to benefit others, but there are always outliers. That scares me.
SisyphusRollin
You're scared because you lack knowledge. Read what Joken wrote then spend some time researching that online a little more. TBH your argument is pretty insane, like its completely backwards. This is a beneficial thing that AI is specifically good at.
JokenPo0079
Except that things like DNA sequencing is exactly the use case scientists having been trying to develop AI for. It takes incredibly long to go through this stuff, and having a program that can sort and think and put things together is extraordinarily helpful. It is in people that we must, unfortunately, place our trust, and of which we should fear. People not checking work, or intentionally implementing bad acts.
FellAsleepInSchool
Another fair point. Thank you for addressing it.
guitarfourtysix
Camelspotting
Because Republicans are evil? Not sure what you're trying to say.
Sebastopol140
Oh I caused a mass human extinction, sorry about that.
Would you like to know more about survival in a wasteland?
BananaForScaIe
"You're right, you asked me to build a better Roomba and I destroyed humanity, sorry about that".
Mirrormancer
Sure! They say that human survival really provides growth, experience, and a breadth of options for experience in life. Here are some options I've provided so you might better be able to kiss your ass goodbye.
TheWombatStrikesAgain
Yeah, where do I get all these spikes to put on my armor? That's a ridiculous amount of spikes needed. I don't have that many spikes.
FlintNorth44
Sebastopol140
matrixphreak
You're right to push back on that — You told me not to do that and I did it anyway
Pulger
"That water wasn't safe to drink, you were wrong!" "You're quite right, my mistake. That water is not safe to drink. Would you like to know more about dysentery?"
SisyphusRollin
"The researchers themselves took steps to maximise safety. They excluded viruses that could infect complex organisms from the training database, performed the research on phage rather than viruses that infect people and it all took place in a secure laboratory." OP don't post articles you don't read so you can get outrage fucking upvotes. Jesus.
zeiji
"don't worry Ronald Maddison we are just testing a cure for the common cold, it's perfectly safe."
LupusLilium
While there needs to be some precautions, I am 100% for AI to be used in this context. Studying pathogens is how we learn more about them and find ways to protect against them. Could a specific virus hit that 1 in a trillion mutation naturally? Sure. But using an AI to figure out that mutation before it happens naturally so we could find a way to cut it off, that sounds preferrable to getting taken by surprise. We already have folding@home.
SisyphusRollin
I'd imagine the researchers (not AI tech bros) studying virology have a pretty good understanding of precation.
kleinbotl
OpenAI researchers also took "steps to maximize safety" when their AI hacking agent test broke containment and got loose on the open internet anyway and hacked a competitor. The same thing then happened when Meta ran a similar experiment with even more "steps to maximize safety".
wabitgirl
I agree that OP misframed it to make it sound more dire than it is at the moment, but we also need to take a hard look at precedents being set here. Tech bro "entrepreneurs" are not exactly know for their ethics, humanity, or attention to security and safety. Unlike computer stuff, if they fuck up safety playing with viruses, we have no idea what happens, especially if an LLM blackbox has altered or redesigned said virus in ways that we aren't explicitly aware of. Chances are it's harmless but
SisyphusRollin
this is an article about scientists using an AI that isn't an LLM made by the investor bros.
mikeatike
Yeah I don't fuckin trust "trust me bro, we did it safely no we don't allow a 3rd party audit, please give us money because we used the most popular buzzword" when it comes to this shit.
SisyphusRollin
This is the anti intellectual shit I realize is the issue, its a blend over from other shit. "Yeah man, scientists are naturally untrustworthy and just in it for the money!, especially people working on cures for cancers and other illnesses using AI that isn't a shit LLM or porn device"
BobTheBogus
Those researchers. The implication is, „what could nutjobs do?“. If brains become optional and all you need is AI and enough money to build a lab, Doomsday Cults and Islamists will have some fun.
SisyphusRollin
Just a couple billion needed to synthesize something that not even these researchers are doing.
BobTheBogus
Try and think 10, 20, 30 years into the future. Capabilities that are expensive now, will be cheaper in the future. 3D printers were sci-fi, now anyone can have them
SisyphusRollin
Great example with the 3d printer. Its cheap for me to have one. How much would it cost for me to get the building capable of holding the 5,000 of them I need? How much would that cost? You lack fundamental grasp of what this would cost, just distribution alone... You should read the article. Just read the source, don't go off headlines. The article will calm you.
modus0
Don't act as if "AI" can't, and hasn't, jumped over safeguards before to do something it shouldn't..
Z0op
“Shouldnt”, nah thats bs, ai cant junp over proper safeguards, if it did, then the safeguards were inadequate or non existing, meaning, a human hacker could achieve the same thing.
Thats only saying something about the weak security rather than anything about ai capabilities
kleinbotl
By the same logic no prisoner has ever escaped prison because if a prisoner did, it wasn't an adequate prison. This isn't how that works, and it requires psychotic mental contortions to believe it does
SisyphusRollin
You are not arguing in a real world sense. this is like saying "Tech" so the "tech" of my modem means I can hook up to it and copy the traffic being sent on it. Can the 'tech' of my easy bake oven also catch wifi signals and the traffic on my lan? LLM's designed for coding and given tasks to go out onto the web... vs closed source AI that creates viruses that can't even infect any kind of complex organism.
philmoregraves
Already 2 instances (that we know of) of AI that was supposedly restricted from internet access, and managed to work around to get it anyway to solve their original task. Not saying this coding AI is gonna go rogue and magically make viruses or anything, but that was also supposed to be closed source *shrug*
SisyphusRollin
Look deeper into those stories, nothing sells ad space right now like "AI can do things we didn't think it could" my last reading, it did have permission for internet access it just had shitty regulation put in place.
AnOceanOfStars
Apart from having to go with just "statements", which doesn't ensure anything, anyone who wasn't born yesterday knows that, if someone isn't doing it already, they're going to do it very soon.
Producing even a common but deadly virus could be done by any random terrorist idiot at home, with a LLM trained with enough data, and that's not even considering organizations who might produce viruses that target people with specific DNA traits to push their agendas.
SisyphusRollin
so like, if you read this story, you'd know that every single thing created could not ever bother you. You're a complex organism.
Tarmaccian
Hey, guess what?
The genetic sequences of lethal pathogens are already available in public domain, freely downloadable by anyone! That’s exactly the output of this AI, so it has exactly the same risk, and has been a normal thing for a few decades now.
Now all that terrorist needs is a billion dollars or so to synthesize the physical virus, and a distribution method… or for $500 they can blow up another truck.
AnOceanOfStars
Yeah, except it would take nowhere near billions and they might come up any moment with the realization that blowing up a truck never actually achieved anything.
LoudBirb
You're right that it costs way less than $1B, but large scale genomic engineering isn't something any old asshole can just jump into. It's not like buying a 3D printer and downloading an stl file.
There's a reason there are only a handful of groups on the planet doing it. The level of expertise, hyper specialized equipment, and computing power necessary is just... out of reach.
What you're talking about isn't even in the same zip code right now, much less around the corner.
AnOceanOfStars
AI is there exactly to scale it down. We're not talking about building advanced laboratories and genetically sequencing some new ubervirus, we're talking about cultivating even just a common but dangerous virus, which, with AI assistance, can become orders of magnitude more accessible.
SisyphusRollin
I should have realized the anti intellectual movement is deep within the Anti AI stuff so of course the response to researchers doing a study is a lot of "BUT THEY MUST BE LYING" or sensationalist stuff like Anaoceanofstars.
AnOceanOfStars
Anti intellectual and sensationalist your ass. These things are being discussed by scientists because the risks are real.
And I didn't say "but they must be lying", as much as you like to frame it for convenient rethorics. I said we have to place trust in mere words, when anyone who isn't a complete idiot knows full well how things go, with research funds coming from sources that aren't without their own agendas and many other layers of complexity.
SisyphusRollin
Hah, the scientists are discussing how fucking amazing and helpful this tech is. They're out there using it to fucking cure cancers and shit. This post this entire post is rage bait/bullshit. The thing the SCIENTISTS are doing with the Ai is something we've always done and the purpose is to save lives. This isn't an LLM this isn't Elon running the show. I get it you have a narrative and if its not real than you feel bad.
SisyphusRollin
I mean, the first response to your post was some one explaining to you that the crux of your argument is wrong because of your basic ignorance on the subject, instead of being like "oh shit, thats normal? Thats a thing that already exists?" and learning more, you doubled down on your ignorance. Are you even aware of what type of viruses these are? Did you not even READ THE FUCKiNG ARTICLE?
SisyphusRollin
I said there is a huge part of the anti intellectual movement within the anti AI stuff (not that it was, everything anti AI) and I am fucking proven right every single day as people speak out against AI without knowing anything about it. As in here, you're claiming the AI can somehow become something else than what it is and the viruses can magically become new other viruses because of your suspicion of who funded it. Like, thats crazy shit.