The researchers who wrote the paper used AI to design 16 functional bacteriophages – viruses that hunt and kill bacteria – that had never existed before. They have been newly created, creatures that have never existed in the world and now they do. The headlines thus screamed alarm: “AI Creates Viruses!” Like how it has always been possible for anyone to do so anyway, even before these AI genomic models came about. The AI thus generated complete viral genomes: not gene by gene but the whole thing all at once.