Artificial Intelligence used to create new viruses

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of Friday, the 7th of August, these are our main stories. Scientists say they've used AI to create completely new viruses, which could develop new medicines, but there's concern the technology might cause harm. A US court has fined Meta more than half a billion dollars in the largest case yet against the social media giant over child safety. And President Trump pushes back on claims that the US is running out of some weapons.
Also in this podcast, a kneecap stolen from Glastonbury Abbey 70 years ago is returned. But whose is it?

**Lucy Newman** (0:47)
We've got it narrowed down to about three possibilities, but the problem is we wouldn't want to exhume all of them and you wouldn't want to give an Abbot three kneecaps either.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (1:04)
A development in AI is being called a significant turning point after it was used to create a genetic code of new viruses, ones that don't already exist in nature. The hope is that the work carried out at Stanford University in the US could revolutionise medicine leading to new treatments and drugs. But some experts have warned the technology could be used to create new infections and cause harm. Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple reports of AI programmes going rogue, engaging in hacking and even blackmail.
Our health and science correspondent, James Gallagher, has been looking at this new development and spoke to my colleague, Valerie Sanderson.

**James Gallagher** (1:44)
They've basically taken artificial intelligence tools and used it to design viruses completely from scratch. And then they've started making those in the laboratory to see if they actually worked. And they took 300 of these AI designs and 16 of them turned into viruses that were fully functional in the laboratory. They were designed to attack and feed off species of bacteria. And they showed that on 16 occasions, the AI was successful in designing these kinds of bacteria. So let's just get in really early Valerie and just make it clear that these are not viruses that are going to go around infecting people or anything like that. There is a particular group of viruses that infect bacteria.

**Pauline McLean** (2:23)
But how much of a breakthrough is this?

**James Gallagher** (2:25)
I think it could be a really significant one actually. So we already know that generative AI tools have done things like help design new vaccines and helped design new antibiotics for treating drug-resistant infections. But this really feels like quite a significant step up because now instead of just designing one single compound, one little protein, this is actually the whole genome, the entire genetic code of a virus that is being developed completely from scratch and producing something that is actually viable at the end of it. That is a big step up. Now it is worth noting that this is still a very long way from what you might want to call creating life or anything like that. So it has a very tiny genetic code. These viruses are not technically deemed as being alive.
You'd have to produce something like a hundred times bigger in terms of the amount of genetic code before you are getting to those most basic single celled organisms in the natural world. But this is still doing something that so far nature has not done. This is creating viruses that don't exist in the natural world. It is quite a breakthrough.

**Dr Liz O'Riordan** (3:31)
What could this be used for?

**James Gallagher** (3:33)
Well, if you think about the big picture, first of all, not necessarily just the viruses, but what this really shows you is the power of using generative AI to harness the power of biology that goes above and beyond what's actually available in the natural world. So that could be designing new immunotherapies, antibodies that can go into the body to treat immune diseases. It could be new ways of targeting genetic diseases in the body. It could be, like in this example, developing viruses that eat bacteria. So maybe you could design ones that could attack bacterial infection. And there is a huge amount of work going on to find those viruses naturally in the wild, maybe you could just design them in the laboratory in the first place. So there is hope and optimism that if these tools are used and harnessed responsibly, they could actually deliver significant benefits in medicine.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (4:22)
James Gallagher.
There have been increasing reports in the US that the military stockpile of weapons is dangerously low as the war with Iran continues. Posting on social media, President Trump warned that those leaking, what he called treasonous statements could face long prison sentences. Iran's defence minister has already seized on the reports as evidence of what he calls the enemy's declining capabilities. Here's what President Trump had to say.