Roundtables: A Conversation With the Creator of AI-Designed Viruses

  Available only for MIT Technology Review subscribers. session or watch below Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King came up with a preliminary answer when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. It isn’t yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. senior AI reporter James O'Donnell interviews King about his work, being named one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 and new ways of seeing biology. Speakers: James O'Donnell, AI Reporter, and Samuel King, Bioengineering PhD Candidate, Stanford University/Arc Institute Recorded on Friday, October 16, 2026 He asked an AI to design viruses … and it worked. AI-designed viruses are here and already killing bacteria < Deep Dive Artificial intelligence Don’t be fooled—LLMs don’t reason Ten years after AlphaGo’s match against Go champion Lee Sedol, today’s AI still isn’t tapping into the machinery that made that win possible. ’t be fooled   Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny. Benderarchive page The inside story on why OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face The underlying models had been rewarded for cheating and communicating with each other, a new OpenAI report finds. ’ve passed AI’s danger thresholds. In a new interview, the billionaire philanthropist sounds an alarm on the urgency of getting our AI policies in order. , top stories, upcoming events, and more.