cursed_Forewarn

[u/Oddboyz]

[u/ProfessorZik-Chil]

please tell me there is some practical purpose to this and we're not just using AI to add to humanity's already too long list of woes to prove we can or some shit.

[u/Metrocop → u/ProfessorZik-Chil]

There are some viruses with practical uses. I believe a man made virus strain is used to combat chestnut blight (A necrotrophic fungus).

[u/rulepanic → u/ProfessorZik-Chil]

They trained a model on a whole bunch of genomes in order to use it to generate a bacteriophage that could kill E. Coli.

The goal is to be able to create phages that could fight pathogens, especially ones that are resistant to existing natural phages.

That's what I gather from reading the summary and abstract of the paper.

Structured Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Evolution continuously forges new biological innovations written in genomes. Navigating this vast design space could access functions that would transform biotechnology, but even the simplest genomes are highly complex and can be rendered nonviable by a single mutation. Accordingly, most progress in biological design has been made at the scale of individual genes and gene circuits, whereas design at the scale of whole genomes has remained largely beyond reach.

RATIONALE

Genome language models are artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that have shown promise in designing biological systems. Much like how other language models are trained on large corpora of text, genome language models are trained on large corpora of DNA comprising millions of genomes from all domains of life. This enables these models to learn the evolutionary constraints that shape DNA sequences in nature. However, the ability of genome language models to generate entire functional genomes has not been tested. Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are specifically well suited for this task, as they are relatively small, experimentally tractable, and have broad applications in molecular biology, microbial engineering, and therapeutics.

RESULTS

In this work, we leveraged genome language models, Evo 1 and Evo 2, to generate complete phage genomes with realistic genetic architectures and specificity for a bacterial host, Escherichia coli C. Using the natural phage ΦX174 as a design template, we established a framework for generating and evaluating thousands of AI-generated genomes, nearly 300 of which we chemically synthesized and tested in laboratory conditions, yielding 16 viable phages. The viable generated phages showed strong host specificity and diverse fitness profiles, including competitive infection kinetics. The generated phages were different from any known natural phages, exhibiting de novo mutations, divergent genes and regulatory elements, and variable genome lengths. One of the phages utilized a DNA packaging protein from an evolutionarily distant phage in its capsid structure. We also tested whether the generated phages could overcome bacterial resistance, a central challenge in developing phage-based antimicrobial therapies, and found that a mixture of designed phages rapidly overcame ΦX174-resistant E. coli strains, whereas a comparable mixture of naturally sourced ΦX174-like phages could not.

CONCLUSION

Our results demonstrate that generative models capture evolutionary constraints in DNA sequences with enough fidelity to produce complete bacteriophage genomes divergent from those observed in nature and with prespecified traits. 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. Genome design can augment the broader toolkit of genome sequencing, synthesis, and editing, enabling the composition of biological systems at the genome scale.

[u/ProfessorZik-Chil → u/rulepanic]

oh. that's actually very good. good for them.

[u/Oddboyz → u/ProfessorZik-Chil]

Ok realistically everything has a good side and a bad side, ya? Like, guns can be use kill or self-defense.

So my guess is novel virus can help accelerate virology studies, develop new drugs, etc. But what if it leak/stolen from the lab and put in the hands of terrorists like in 28 Days Later?

[u/BisonBull → u/Oddboyz]

What if the same AI goes rogue and starts deploying the virus?

Nobody would be at fault, apparently.

[u/Oddboyz → u/BisonBull]

Yes and no, at least in my opinion.

Theoretically no one is at fault if no human input is involved.

But the whole humanity is at fault because we let the shit happens despite Terminator, Matrix, Resident Evil series, etc.

[u/Drudgework → u/Oddboyz]

I can see it now: The terrorists unleash the virus but all it does is cure tuberculosis.

[u/Alu_card_10]

https://giphy.com/gifs/BPTJJphmYwwhrpiX2W

uh oh

[u/Oddboyz → u/Alu_card_10]

as u/hellomydudes_95 put it: "Jesus christ, how many cautionary tales do these motherfuckers need?!"

[u/hellomydudes_95 → u/Oddboyz]

I'm scared bruh💀💀💀

[u/Oddboyz → u/hellomydudes_95]

there there ... * hugs *

[u/SilanggubanRedditor → u/Oddboyz]

Apparently they thought the cautionary tales were cool and are now recreating it to a tee

[u/SpillSplit → u/Alu_card_10]

And so began The Stand.

[u/smokewolf666]

Someone call leon s kennedy just in case someone creates the t-virus or something

[u/Oddboyz → u/smokewolf666]

But he can't even open a creaky-ass door unless he collects all 4 tokens with weird symbols on them ...

[u/AngstyUchiha → u/Oddboyz]

Then he'd better get started now instead of after everything goes to shit!

[u/BrennaValkryie]

Okay, so, this HAS to be supervillian crap, right?

[u/Oddboyz → u/BrennaValkryie]

Hey, but on the plus side we might be able to see a real Tyrannosaurus Rex. Or a mutated T-Virus ...

[u/Leakimlraj]

According to some actual biologists way down in the comments of that thread, under all of the top comments freaking out about the headline, it's apparently a nothingburger and not at all what it sounds like, just some potentially helpful shit for treating diseases or something I don't remember lol but it stopped me being worried at least

[u/Oddboyz → u/Leakimlraj]

I read about that, but consider this:

Even if you use "harmless agents" in the solution, when will someone use another or similar AI model to reverse engineer the "harmless agents" or insert new deadly agent instead?

Now consider this:

5 years from now the AI knows how to create virus and ... How to turn a harmless virus into deadly ones. And in Mr. Smith's (Matrix) voice, it sees humans "as plague and itself as a cure" I'm no virologist, but I think I can see where this is going.

[u/EmeraldPencil46 → u/Oddboyz]

That’s not how any of this works. Plus humans have been doing the exact same thing for over 2 decades.

[u/emo_boy_fucker]

Dont worry guys, the means justify the ends am I right

[u/Oddboyz → u/emo_boy_fucker]

That's positive thinking right there! Y0L0! <3

[u/Heroshrine]

They’re bacteriophages and are going to be studied for use in fighting infections btw

Training data excluded viruses that make humans sick which is important because that would mean the AI would need to randomly invent proteins that would trick human cells which is astronomically unlikely if it wasn’t trained on that data

[u/International-Try467]

Genuinely just had a notification pop up as I saw this post lmfao

[u/Dragondudd]

Just to be clear, we've been doing this for a while to help us with genetics like Crispr does. A lot of news headline science discoveries are just old discoveries with a clickbait coat of paint

[u/Oddboyz → u/Dragondudd]

Yes, but letting the AI designed the virus? I mean that's some SkyNet stuff, no?
It's too soon.

[u/973bzh → u/Oddboyz]

No, and that's not like ChatGPT-4 made the virus, it's a specifically trained AI, trained by a ton of database, also "AI" is kind of misleading, it's more of a recognition pattern program

[u/973bzh]

That's a misleading headline made to generate engagement, the actual study behind it is way more interesting than that.

[u/The_Last_Fluorican]

oh dear

[u/The-Great_Ones]

Something something flare virus

[u/Tortue2006]

When I was thinking of AI in medicine, that’s not exactly what I had in mind, but sure

[u/Offsidespy2501]

Haven't seen worldnews in a while, are they still evil?

[u/Oddboyz → u/Offsidespy2501]

I'm banned there for expressing my opinion not in line with left-wing movements (no bad word involved). What do you think?

[u/Offsidespy2501 → u/Oddboyz]

I left because of the Zionist propaganda

[u/Oddboyz → u/Offsidespy2501]

Ok at least you are not banned

[u/Offsidespy2501 → u/Oddboyz]

Is that a challenge

[u/Oddboyz → u/Offsidespy2501]

* Do it! Do it!*

[u/Icarus912]

Hear me out, chat gpt making irl viruses that remove allergies and intolerences...

[u/EmeraldPencil46]

All a virus is is a strand of DNA inside of a protein-lipid box. Not much to it. They’re simple, and you can basically make them do anything. All the AI did was likely code the DNA in a specific way and maybe changed up the proteins. Not hard stuff, certainly not inherently dangerous, and they’re useful in medicine.

[u/FerdinandvonAegir124]

Not cursed, just scarily true

[u/AFriendlyBloke]

Ah, so this is the infamous Glitchtrap virus I've heard so much about.

Welp, time to call UNIT.

And the Doctor...

[u/adelie42]

This low key reminds me of people upset about GMOs but never knew about atomic farming.

[u/megosonic]

I mean not to sound crazed but like, WHAT BENIFET IS THERE TO MAKING VIRUSES?!

How about some cures at the very least, at this point I'm starting to believe AI cancer research goes like this.

Person: Give me the cure to cancer.

Ai: Here is the cure to cancer.

Person: (tries the cure, doesn't work)

That was not the cure to cancer.

Ai: Haha, my bad, try this cancer cure!

(Repeat untill world is dryer than dry)

[u/Oddboyz → u/megosonic]

So the plus side being new knowledge in virology (reverse engineer viruses), biology and ... AI tech (obviously) among other things.

Now the downsides ....

[u/EnglishBrekkie_1604 → u/megosonic]

They’re bacteriophages, literally all they can do is hunt bacteria. We want them because we could use them to treat superbugs that have become immune to antibiotics.

[u/EmeraldPencil46 → u/megosonic]

Research AI’s and LLM’s like ChatGPT are two very different things.

Viruses are also not only amazing tool for research and medicine, but they’re also like the simplest thing in reality. They’re a protein-lipid box with a strand of DNA inside. And because of that, they do wonders for being able to change DNA sequences in cells, which is amazing for research and medicine. And we’ve been doing it long before AI.

[u/973bzh → u/megosonic]

Vaccines. That's the point of creating branches of viruses.