Biosecurity debate: researcher argues in-silico pathogen design doesn't need perfect cell simulation
anshulkundaje · x · 2026-10-26
A retweet by Stanford prof Anshul Kundaje amplifies OliviaHelenS's rebuttal to claims that AI can't design pandemic pathogens in silico: you don't need perfect cell simulation (or even AI) to design a more lethal pathogen; mass-casualty scenarios aren't out of the question given 90-95% of Indigenous Americans died from introduced diseases — and we mostly know how to reduce the risk but haven't.
The quoted post by Ramez Naam argues the opposite: cells contain billions of proteins with trillions of interactions per second, we lack ground-truth data and sensors, and both "AI cures aging" and "AI kills everyone via in-silico pandemics" rest on the same fallacy.
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