An AI switches gears

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In under six hours, an AI that is usually employed in developing medicine was able to invent 40,000 potentially deadly molecules. At a conference on biological and chemical weapons control, researchers inverted the learning model, prioritizing toxicity instead of innocuousness, to show how easy it is to misuse the tool for harmful purposes. AI found tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the strongest neurotoxic chemical ever discovered. The shaken and worried researchers published their findings in this month’s Nature Machine Intelligence journal.

The Verge interviewed Fabio Urbina, the paper’s lead writer and scientist at Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, a company that specializes in medical treatment research for rare diseases. “The biggest thing that jumped out at first was that a lot of the generated compounds were predicted to be actually more toxic than VX. And the reason that’s surprising is because VX is basically one of the most potent compounds known” explained the researcher, apprehensive about the effectiveness of the technology and the ease of its conversion.  

⇨ The Verge, Justine Calma, “AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours.”

2022-03-17