We’re live with Palantir CEO Dr. Alex Karp right now from AIPCon 10.
Today’s lineupPalantir Co-Founder & CEO Dr. Alex Karp at 11:45 AM
AIG Executive Chairman Peter Zaffino at 12:10 PM
Palantir Forward Deployed Architect Chad Wahlquist at 12:30 PM
USDA CIO Sam Berry at 1:00 PM
The Great Houses of AI Unite Behind Bio Threat
In 1981, a group of researchers published the primary structure of the poliovirus genome in the journal Nature. Poliovirus is an RNA virus, meaning that its nucleobases, or building blocks, are A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine), and U (uracil). Put more plainly, when the researchers published the primary structure of poliovirus, they gave the world the literal sequence of poliovirus building blocks, in order, from start to finish. By the mid-20th century, before mass vaccination, polio was paralyzing or killing more than half a million people per year worldwide.
In 2002, researchers synthesized infectious poliovirus from its publicly available sequence data. Crucially, the researchers didn’t need actual poliovirus RNA on hand to make it. Instead, they were able to take the published sequence, chemically synthesize short DNA fragments, assemble them into a full-length DNA copy of the poliovirus genome, then use the DNA to make viral RNA and fully recover the infectious virus.
In 2005, researchers used these same techniques to reconstruct the Spanish flu, the virus in 1918 that killed ~675,000 Americans and had a 2-3% mortality rate among those infected.
Basically, these two reconstructed viruses showed that having a physical virus on hand was no longer necessary as source material to create viruses. All that was needed were the blueprints.
That is the situation we are still in today. Except now we have AI.
Yesterday, Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Alexandr Wang, and dozens of other high profile leaders across AI, tech, policy, nucleic acid synthesis, and biotech, signed an open letter called In Support of Mandatory Nucleic Acid Synthesis Screening and Recordkeeping. You might have seen it on the timeline, and at first glance, assumed it was another press release from a frontier AI lab claiming it had just discovered new capabilities in one of its internal models that would ultimately lead to catastrophe. I know I did.
But this letter is actually not that. The letter instead asks the US government to force nucleic acid synthesis companies to screen orders for sequences of concern (that could be used to make bioweapons), to verify the legitimacy of the customer, and to keep a record of what they’re sending and to whom. The reason the letter is coming out now is that the threat of nucleic acid sequences getting into the wrong hands has been enhanced by AI.
Most of the global nucleic acid synthesis industry already signed up to do some of this in 2009 with the International Gene Synthesis Consortium — roughly 80% of commercial synthesis capacity worldwide. But membership in this consortium is not a strong guarantee that they’re actually screening and keeping records of their customers. The 80% number is self-reported, for example. A bunch of other factors also contribute to the relative flimsiness of the agreement. HHS also has guidance in place around the issue, but again it’s voluntary. Meaning that the possibility of bad actors getting their hands on dangerous nucleic acid sequences, at least from American companies, still cannot be ruled out.
Overall, it’s good to see industry leaders signing this letter, and doubly refreshing that the letter is not yet another warning of apocalyptic AI doom, which I think the public has unfortunately come to expect from announcements like this. Hopefully the relevant legislators are paying attention and can make this happen in short order.
— Brandon
Clip Spotlight: IP-heavy companies will ultimately benefit massively from AIYesterday, Post Fiat’s Alex Good said that IP-heavy entertainment stocks will become a lot more valuable.
“There was a narrative that video games would be a big beneficiary of AI. Like, ‘What if all NPCs were LLMs?’ or ‘What if you had in-game generative content?’”
“But the reality is, given the cost structures and bottlenecks, that’s just not affordable. You can’t generate real-time AI characters and expect to break even on that because that would be like, $6 per gaming session.”
“But as AI gets cheaper, that story is going to change. I think that’s where we’re going. I think we’re going to get a big acceleration in entertainment stuff because the cost of AI is going to go down.”
HeadlinesOpen Letter: In Support of Mandatory Nucleic Acid Synthesis Screening and Recordkeeping
WSJ: Top AI CEOs Call for Law Protecting Against Biological Weapons
The Information: Meta Looks to Charge Up to $200 a Month for Planned ‘Hatch’ AI Agent
OpenAI releases memeable Codex ad
OpenAI rolls out memory for GPT Plus and Pro users
Reuters: Goldman Sachs expects SpaceX’s AI revenue to surge 100-fold by 2030, FT reports
Ramp raises $750M at $44B valuation
WSJ: Silicon Valley Stalwart Benchmark Breaks From Past, Embraces Mature Startups
Austin Statesman: Austin-based podcaster Joe Rogan reportedly being considered for 60 Minutes role
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