AI-Designed Viruses: Could Generative Models Create New Life?
Can artificial intelligence design an entirely new form of life? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King offered an early glimpse of what may be possible by using a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. The work does not mean AI has already created living organisms: the designs remain preliminary and represent proposed genetic instructions rather than functioning life forms. Still, the experiment raises profound questions about how AI could reshape biology, accelerate virus research, and potentially enable the creation of organisms that do not exist in nature. On Friday, October 16, 2026, MIT Technology Review’s senior AI reporter will lead a Roundtables discussion on King’s research, the scientific limits of AI-designed viruses, and whether AI-generated life could be the next frontier.