Startup Radical Numerics has developed a model that it says can identify natural and AI-engineered pathogens without an internet connection. Frontier AI labs have warned that their technology could help develop dangerous bioweapons . Now, a startup says it has developed a defense. On Wednesday, Radical Numerics announced that it has developed a new edge model called Omnii Defense that is designed to flag natural and AI-engineered pathogens using a laptop and a USB gene sequencer. It can also run without an internet connection, allowing researchers in the field with spotty connections to use it.

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Sir Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, raised concerns over the use of AI by hostile groups. Sir Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, raised concerns over the use of AI by hostile groups. In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK's intelligence service, MI5, warned that AI had the potential to "change the stakes" on existing and even new bioweapons. Here we look at how AI might help in the development of bioweapons and the hurdles that remain. How could AI help people make bioweapons?

In her new book on biological warfare, Annie Jacobsen didn't even discuss AI because scientists can already warp Mother Nature to create extinction-level events. We've been hearing a great deal recently about the specter of AI-driven human extinction . Maybe our misplaced trust in AI intelligence will set off World War III . Or AI agents will unleash widespread cyberattacks and take over the internet. Given too much autonomy, the machines will run amok. They may seek to deceive their creators--wait, that's already happened . Suppose they conclude, like Agent Smith in, that "human beings are a plague, and we are the cure." Or perhaps the chatbots help bad humans unleash a literal plague--a biological weapon .

Of all the threats presented by uncontrollable artificial intelligence, scientists say death by plague ranks low. Concerns about an AI-induced apocalypse are reaching a fever pitch, from Silicon Valley to Washington, DC. One of the top theories about how a rogue AI will wipe us out? Earlier this summer, AI CEOs called for new laws to control the manufacturing of synthetic DNA. Then last month, researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute showed that AI can design new viral genomes .

When doctors can't figure out what's ailing us, they can search our bodies for snippets of genetic material from viruses, bacteria, and fungi. In 2019, Nichol Cano, an otherwise healthy mother of three in Fresno, California, began experiencing worsening headaches. She had no history of headaches; they had seemed to start after a liposuction surgery in Tijuana, Mexico. She saw her primary-care doctor and then a neurologist, who diagnosed her as having migraines. She was given a standard migraine treatment--an injection and a pill--but her pain only intensified.

US researchers have announced the creation of new viruses using artificial intelligence, a scientific first that raises hopes for advances in medical treatments while also stoking anxiety about the dangers of the frontier technology. In findings published in the journal Science, researchers at Stanford University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard said they used a naturally occurring phage - a type of virus that infects bacteria - as a template to generate thousands of genomes with AI. In tests, a mixture of the synthetic viruses proved more effective at killing E coli bacteria than the naturally occurring viruses, according to the findings. "Our approach expands what synthetic genomics can achieve alongside methods such as directed evolution and rational engineering, lays out a path for generating adaptive and resilient phage therapies against rapidly evolving pathogens, and establishes a foundation for the generative design of larger, more complex genomes," the researchers wrote in Science. Brian Hie and Samuel King, two of the paper's authors, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Since 2023, Moderna and Korea University have been developing a new mRNA vaccine for hantavirus. The work has been promising so far, but a finished product isn't likely coming any time soon. US-based pharmaceutical company Moderna confirmed that it has been working on the development of hantavirus vaccines in collaboration with the Vaccine Innovation Center of Korea University College of Medicine (VIC-K). This comes after an outbreak of hantavirus occurred on a Dutch cruise ship that sailed from Argentina and disembarked its passengers and crew in the Canary Islands on May 10. At least three people aboard the MV died, and several cases were reported as serious.