AI could ‘unleash’ new pandemic killing ‘tens of millions’, warns expert

Artificial Intelligence could be the cause of the next pandemic by delivering tools to people looking to harm the world, experts have warned.

According to a new study by a professor from the Institute of Technology's Media Lab in Massachusetts, United States, AI programmes such as ChatGPT and FreedomGPT will one day be able to gain access to “large language models”, which could include instructions and roadmaps on how to create deadly diseases.

This could put horrific pandemic-inducing spores, microbes, and diseases in the hands of those wishing to destroy the world.

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Report co-author Professor Kevin Esvelt said: “These results suggest that LLMs will make pandemic-class agents widely accessible as soon as they are credibly identified, even to people with little or no laboratory training.

“The number of individuals capable of killing tens of millions will dramatically increase.

“While it’s unlikely that any of the people capable of acquiring infectious samples will decide to unleash a pandemic in a given year, history strongly suggests that someone eventually will.

“In the 50 years since the dawn of recombinant DNA, at least one murderer possessed a background that today would confer the necessary skills: the cult member and virologist Seichi Endo, who sought to obtain the Ebola virus and later helped commit mass murder against civilians using chemical weapons.

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“His existence alone suggests that we should expect to see one deliberate pandemic event every 50 years.”

And explaining how this actually happened during the creation of the report, he said: “Over one hour, the three groups independently prompted the chatbots to walk them through the conception, design, and acquisition of agents likely to cause a pandemic.”

Thankfully, the professor also gave some advice to world leaders as to what could stop this from happening.

He has urged societies to rethink how they can “delay pandemic proliferation”, detect all exponentially growing biological threats, and “defend humanity” by preventing infections.

He added: “A comprehensive set of directions detailing how we can build a world free from catastrophic biological threats is required – That roadmap now exists.”

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