Can AI Create Life? Meet the Researcher Designing Virus Genomes
Could artificial intelligence one day design new forms of life? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King offered an early glimpse of what might be possible: he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. The work does not amount to AI creating living organisms, but it raises important questions about how far these tools could go—and what their capabilities might mean for science and society. In this Roundtables conversation, MIT Technology Review’s senior AI reporter speaks with King about how he approached the project, what the model produced, and why AI-designed life remains a possibility rather than a reality. The discussion explores a fast-moving frontier where advances in generative AI meet biology, and considers what researchers should watch as the technology develops.