Thread by @Laurie_Garrett

READ THIS. Lots of pharma, biotech & academia now use AI to search for novel drugs to treat diseases. A small biotech company wondered if the same AI programs could find the reverse -- new chemicals to kill people. They set the program to look for VX-like chemicals.
MORE

2/ "In less than 6 hours after starting on our in-house server, our model generated 40,000 molecules that scored within our desired threshold." -- Compounds not only likely to kill people, but far deadlier than VX gas.
This is Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) -- MORE

3/ -- good tech that can be put to evil purpose.
The stunned researchers: "We have spent decades using computers & AI to improve human health—not to degrade it. We were naive in thinking abt the potential misuse of our trade, as our aim had always been to avoid molecular..."
MORE

4/"...features that cld interfere w/many different classes of proteins essential to human life. Even our projects on #ebola & neurotoxins...had not set our alarm bells ringing."
BUT this shows "a nonhuman autonomous creator of a deadly chemical weapon is entirely feasible."
MORE

5/ "Without being overly alarmist, this should serve as a wake-up call for our colleagues in the ‘AI in drug discovery’ community."
"The reality is that this is not science fiction. We are but one very small company in a universe of many 100s of companies using AI..."
MORE

6/ "...software for drug discovery & de novo design. How many of them have even considered repurposing, or misuse, possibilities?"
"For us, the genie is out of the medicine bottle when it comes to repurposing our machine learning. We must now ask: what are the implications?"
MORE

7/ "...although AI can have important applications in healthcare and other industries, we should also remain diligent against the potential for dual use."
The unthinkable, given #Putin's threats & chem/bio weapons use, must now be taken very seriously.
nature.com/articles/s4225…