The Generative Genome

How AI tools are starting to blur the boundary between software and living systems

If you thought AI slop and deepfakes were a cause for alarm, just wait until people start using generative AI to mess around with viruses.

That day may be closer than you might think, although the worst-case doomsday scenarios seem unlikely to come to fruition anytime soon. For reasons that take a bit of explaining, biology remains stubbornly resistant to the scaling logic of software development.

In this new piece for Communications of the ACM, I dig into the emerging world of AI-designed genomes and the increasingly fuzzy line between software and living systems.

For now, the biggest bottlenecks remain physical and economic rather than computational. Nonetheless, the contours of a broader shift are clearly coming into view. In the years ahead, biological systems are going to become increasingly programmable.

You can read the rest here: https://cacm.acm.org/news/the-generative-genome/