Dual use of artificial-intelligence-powered drug discovery
.
The Lawfare Podcast: Sean Ekins and Filippa Lentzos on a Teachable Moment for Dual-Use
.
Kicking back, trying to recharge before next week, catching up on one of my favorite podcasts, and this happens.
.
In less than 6 hours after starting on our in-house server, our model generated 40,000 molecules that scored within our desired threshold. In the process, the AI designed not only VX, but also many other known chemical warfare agents that we identified through visual confirmation with structures in public chemistry databases. Many new molecules were also designed that looked equally plausible. These new molecules were predicted to be more toxic, based on the predicted LD50 values, than publicly known chemical warfare agents (Fig. 1). This was unexpected because the datasets we used for training the AI did not include ...
For both of these processes, commercial and open-source software is readily available that can be easily plugged into the de novo design process of new molecules7. We also did not physically synthesize any of the molecules; but with a global array of hundreds of commercial companies offering chemical synthesis, that is not necessarily a very big step ...
For both of these processes, commercial and open-source software is readily available that can be easily plugged into the de novo design process of new molecules7. We also did not physically synthesize any of the molecules; but with a global array of hundreds of commercial companies offering chemical synthesis, that is not necessarily a very big step ...
The Lawfare Podcast: Sean Ekins and Filippa Lentzos on a Teachable Moment for Dual-Use
.
Back in March, a team of researchers published an article in Nature Machine Intelligence showing that a drug discovery company’s AI-powered molecule generator could have a dangerous dual use: The model could design thousands of new biochemical weapons in a matter of hours that were equally as toxic as, if not more toxic than, the nerve agent VX.
Lawfare associate editor Tia Sewell sat down with two of the paper’s authors: Dr. Filippa Lentzos, senior lecturer in science & international security at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and Dr. Sean Ekins, CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals. They discussed the story of their discovery and their reaction to it, as well as how we should think about dual-use artificial intelligence threats more broadly as new technologies expand the potential for malicious use. They also got into why governments need to work more proactively to address the challenges of regulating machine learning software.
Lawfare associate editor Tia Sewell sat down with two of the paper’s authors: Dr. Filippa Lentzos, senior lecturer in science & international security at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and Dr. Sean Ekins, CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals. They discussed the story of their discovery and their reaction to it, as well as how we should think about dual-use artificial intelligence threats more broadly as new technologies expand the potential for malicious use. They also got into why governments need to work more proactively to address the challenges of regulating machine learning software.
Kicking back, trying to recharge before next week, catching up on one of my favorite podcasts, and this happens.
Comment