The AI virus fight

AI-designed bacteriophages are now a live X fight. A Science paper published on Aug. 6 used the genome-language models Evo1 and Evo2 to generate complete phage genomes; researchers synthesized and tested nearly 300 candidates, and 16 were viable. 1

The boundary matters: these are bacteriophages, which infect bacteria, not people. Human, animal and plant viral genomes were excluded from the training data. The reported upside is a possible route to phage therapies; the concern is whether controls over model access, research review, DNA synthesis and lab safety can keep pace. 12

X reaction is shown here as an illustrative sample, not a poll. At the captured snapshot, the @disclosetv post had 811,590 views, @Polymarket had 440,885, and @5149jamesli had 6,720. 345