Kevin Esvelt, a biologist at the MIT Media Lab, discusses the threat posed by engineered bioweapons. They cover topics such as the risks of deliberately released pandemics, advancements in technology for creating synthetic viruses, the potential dangers of AI models enabling access to dangerous pathogens, strategies for reducing transmission of pathogens, and the use of gene drives to fight diseases.

Biologist Kevin Esvelt discusses AI's impact on biological research, highlighting benefits in medicine and public health while addressing concerns of biosecurity threats. The conversation delves into the power of AI in predicting protein activities, designing disease prevention tools, and the urgent need for tighter regulations in genetic research to mitigate risks of creating dangerous viruses.

A full writeup of this episode is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/esvelt-sandbrink. Kevin Esvelt is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he is director of the Sculpting Evolution group, which invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems. He helped found the SecureDNA Project and the Nucleic Acid Observatory, both of which we discuss in the episode. Esvelt is also known for proposing the idea of using CRISPR to implement gene drives. Jonas Sandbrink is a researcher and DPhil student at the Future of Humanity Institute. He is a fellow at both the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and with the Ending Bioweapons Program at the Council on Strategic Risks. Jonas’ research interests include the dual-use potential of life sciences research and biotechnology, as well as fast response countermeasures like vaccine platforms. We discuss: The concepts of differential technological development, dual-use research, transfer risks in research, 'information loops', and responsible access to biological data Strengthening norms against risky biological research, such as novel virus identification and gain of function research Connection-based warning systems and metagenomic sequencing technology Advanced PPE, Far-UVC sterilisation technology, and other countermeasures against pandemics potentially worse than Covid Analogies between progress in biotechnology and the early history of nuclear weapons How to use your career to work on these problems — even if you don’t have a background in biology. You can read more about the topics we cover in this episode's write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/farmer. If you have any feedback, you can get a free book for filling out our new feedback form. You can also get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us a review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

Kevin Esvelt, a scientist at MIT, argues that research intended to prevent pandemics is actually putting us in a lot more danger. Also discussed: Kevin's own research on engineering wild animal species. Are the risks worth the benefits?

In this episode of the podcast, Rob Reid and Kevin Esvelt discuss USAID’s new “Deep VZN” program, which aims to discover new pandemic-grade viruses and publish their genomes to the world. Esvelt estimates that there are currently around 30,000 people who could then easily build them. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.   Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.