Today 07:03 AM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026.../107161348
EXCERPTS: An advanced AI model could give a user outside traditional systems the information required to make a bioweapon. "It could be a virus or it could be a bacteria, it could be a fungus, it could be something we've never seen before."
Equally dangerously, in Dr Heslop's opinion, an AI tool like a large language model (LLM) could help a bad actor plan to deploy dangerous material, including pre-existing viruses or toxins.
Such work would still need a level of expertise and tens of thousands of dollars of lab equipment.
"We're not at the point, yet, where the LLM gives you a superpower," Dr Heslop says. "But it's certainly something that could be done in a laboratory."
[...] There are several cases where AI has already been used to help design dangerous biological agents. In 2022, researchers at the Collaborations Pharmaceuticals company showed they could use their company's AI software to make dangerous toxins.
[...] In its recent threat intelligence report, Anthropic highlighted five examples of people using its products "in ways that could support biological weapons development". Anthropic's models were used to do things like draft grant applications and analyse data in research that made human viruses more contagious, and venoms and toxins more deadly.
All of these users, according to Anthropic, were "working scientists" outside the US using unauthorised software to gain access to the US versions of their products... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: An advanced AI model could give a user outside traditional systems the information required to make a bioweapon. "It could be a virus or it could be a bacteria, it could be a fungus, it could be something we've never seen before."
Equally dangerously, in Dr Heslop's opinion, an AI tool like a large language model (LLM) could help a bad actor plan to deploy dangerous material, including pre-existing viruses or toxins.
Such work would still need a level of expertise and tens of thousands of dollars of lab equipment.
"We're not at the point, yet, where the LLM gives you a superpower," Dr Heslop says. "But it's certainly something that could be done in a laboratory."
[...] There are several cases where AI has already been used to help design dangerous biological agents. In 2022, researchers at the Collaborations Pharmaceuticals company showed they could use their company's AI software to make dangerous toxins.
[...] In its recent threat intelligence report, Anthropic highlighted five examples of people using its products "in ways that could support biological weapons development". Anthropic's models were used to do things like draft grant applications and analyse data in research that made human viruses more contagious, and venoms and toxins more deadly.
All of these users, according to Anthropic, were "working scientists" outside the US using unauthorised software to gain access to the US versions of their products... (MORE - missing details)
