In lab tests, a cocktail of the AI-designed viruses killed E coli bugs that were resistant to natural bacteriophages. The ability to “rapidly design” genomes and tune them for specific bugs while overcoming resistance could “transform phage therapy” and “expand biotechnological toolkits”, the researchers wrote in the journal Science. The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not.” Hie and his colleagues used AI models called Evo1 and Evo2 to design the new viral genomes. Bacteriophage genomes are tiny, but Inglesby and Hanke said the work nevertheless proved that generative AI could create functioning viral genomes.