When AI Writes DNA: Radical Numerics CEO on the Biosecurity Arms Race
Latent Space · youtube · 2026-09-23
Latent Space interviews Eric Nguyen, CEO of Radical Numerics and key figure behind Evo, on AI's leap from reading to writing DNA.
- Omni model: outperforms specialized models on disease-variant prediction, reasons across biological sequences, and 'shows its work' when designing molecules.
- Surprising finding: the model learned useful biological structure it was never explicitly taught.
- Biosecurity: models can design sequences that preserve function while evading today's screening; Nguyen argues current biosecurity solves the wrong problem and advocates AI-native defenses, possibly built by the same teams advancing biological design.
- Also covers the first AI-generated genome, long context for DNA, and biology for rare-earth extraction.
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