The Startup Trying to Save Us From AI Bioweapons- EP 74 Hannu Rajaniemi

**Ashlee Vance** (0:00)
All right, on this week's episode, we're gonna go into the very pleasant discussion of what happens when AI systems or people equipped with AI technology try to make biotech weapons and how we might defend against this. Our guest is Hannu Rajaniemi. I did my very best with his very Finnish name. He's a science fiction author, a very well known science fiction author. He is an academic. He's brilliant at math, physics, biotech. He's run a biotech company for many years now and has a new one called Red Queen Bio. And its very mission is to try to, I guess, outthink the AIs or at least the people using the AIs to do harmful things in the biotech realm. Red Queen is funded in part by OpenAI, and it's also partnering with all the major labs to try and explore these issues and how we could combat something going very, very wrong in the world and be some steps ahead.
This conversation with Hannu made me think, well, our politicians are already quite terrible and they're likely ill-equipped to deal with the world of AI and rapid change that is upon us. And maybe we should have science fiction writers and thinkers as our politicians because I think they might be the only people that can keep up. This is a really, Hannu is a fascinating guy. He's lived a very interesting life. He thinks about all kinds of wonderful new ideas and approaches to the world. His writing is brilliant. He's brilliant. You're going to enjoy this chat. As ever, please leave us a like or a review. Wherever you listen to this podcast, it makes a huge difference to people finding our show. We would really appreciate it. Hi, I'm Ashley Vance. This is Core Memory. Off we go.
Hannu, Hannu.
Yeah?

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (2:24)
Yes.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:25)
It's so nice to see you.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (2:27)
You as well.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:29)
We've met a couple times out and about in San Francisco, and then I guess we're in the Fellow Author Club.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (2:39)
That's right.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:39)
Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming in today. You, I think people are gonna be blown away by, you're just one of those people who does such a variety of interesting things. So there's plenty of places for us to go. I'm excited.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (3:00)
Likewise.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:03)
Well, as is the nature of doing these things, I research my guests and then that always leads me, often to want to start biographically just because I get hung up on a couple of things that I find as I'm digging around.
So just so the audience knows, we're going to get into some strange places with AI and biotech and all these things. But your background was fascinating. One thing, when I was reading about you, it's, well, you're Finnish. It sounds like you grew up in quite a small town, nearish the Arctic Circle, I think.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (3:38)
Yeah, not quite right at the Arctic Circle, but pretty close. So a place called Yli, I guess, because there are about 10,000 people.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:44)
I've been to Finland once. I was in the South and I did the whole sauna and I went and then I got tossed into the Baltic Sea. You know, it was winter. It was extremely cold, but rejuvenated, yeah. There's this Finnish actor who, I was hanging out with him. He has the sauna in Helsinki.
It's a rather big one. It's called like Luleo.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (4:12)
Oh, Luleo, Luleo, which actually means the steam.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:16)
Yeah, I could never get it right. But so he's an actor. He's, they called him the-

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (4:20)
Jesper Bräkkönen?

**Ashlee Vance** (4:21)
Yes, the Finnish Leonardo DiCaprio.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (4:24)
He is the Finnish Leonardo DiCaprio.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:26)
So we sauned it together. And he kept telling me I wasn't saying sauna right.
And I definitely couldn't get the Luleo. Luleo. Luleo. So that's like the spirit of it sort of, isn't it?

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (4:38)
It is. Sauna is a sacred place and Luleo is the spirit.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:42)
Yeah. And so I'm reading about you in this, the Finnish culture. It's so, I feel like it's quite unique. And I really enjoyed my time there.
It sounded like you were the only nerd in the town where you grew up or at least this is what I was picturing as I read about you playing D&D and doing all these things in your mind in this small Finnish town up north.

**Hannu Rajaniemi** (5:10)
Yeah, I was certainly, I don't know if I was the only nerd, but I was probably the nerdiest, the nerdiest of the nerds.