Giving Compass' Take:
- Jonas Sandbrink examines the potential bioterrorism risks posed by widespread access to AI tools like ChatGPT.
- What are the potential harmful uses of AI language models like ChatGPT? How can these harmful uses be prevented?
- Read about the dangers of anthropomorphizing AI.
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In the summer of 1990, three trucks sprayed a yellow liquid at different sites in and around Tokyo, including two US Naval bases, Narita Airport, and the imperial palace. The attackers belonged to a group called Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult that aimed to cause the collapse of civilization, making space for the rise of a new society ordered according to their religious ideals. Five years later, Aum would gain notoriety by carrying out sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and injuring thousands.
Aum intended for the yellow liquid dispersed in the summer of 1990 to contain botulinum toxin, one of the most poisonous biological substances known to human beings. However, no one was killed in the attacks that summer. One possible factor in their failure is that Aum lacked a crucial bit of knowledge: the difference between disseminating the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and disseminating the highly deadly botulinum toxin it produces. It is unclear whether Aum even managed to acquire a toxin-producing form of the bacterium, and there are also other causes for why Aum’s attack failed.
But if it had access to contemporary artificial intelligence tools, Aum Shinrikyo, or a similarly malign group, might not have made this and other mistakes. ChatGPT is very good at answering questions and providing knowledge, including on the production of botulinum toxin. If Aum had had access to ChatGPT, would the attacks of the summer of 1990 be remembered as possibly the worst bioterrorism event in history?
Advances in artificial intelligence have tremendous potential to have positive impacts on science and health. Tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing how society works and learns, and artificial intelligence applied to biology has led to solving the decade-old protein folding problem and is transforming drug discovery. However, as artificial intelligence raises the ceiling of biological engineering and helps distribute these powers to a tremendous number of individuals, there is a serious risk that it will enable ill-intentioned actors like Aum Shinrikyo, to potentially devastating effect. As I have discussed in a recent preprint paper, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, as well as novel AI-powered biological design tools, may significantly increase the risks from biological weapons and bioterrorism.
Read the full article about AI and bioterrorism by Jonas Sandbrink at Vox.