Today's AI Could Make Pandemics 5 Times More Likely, Experts Predict

Crucially, the surveyors then asked another question: how much would that risk increase if AI tools could match the performance of a team of experts on a difficult virology troubleshooting test? If AI could do that, the average expert said, then the annual risk would jump to 1.5%--a fivefold increase. What the forecasters didn't know was that Donoughe, a research scientist at the pandemic prevention nonprofit SecureBio, was testing AI systems for that very capability. In April, Donoughe's team revealed the results of those tests: today's top AI systems can outperform PhD-level virologists at a difficult troubleshooting test. In other words, AI can now do the very thing that forecasters warned would increase the risk of a human-caused pandemic fivefold.