Can AI Design New Life? Inside the Quest to Create Viruses by Code
Can artificial intelligence design entirely new forms of life? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King offered an early, provocative glimpse at what may be possible when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. The work does not represent fully AI-generated life: the model produced designs on paper, not autonomous organisms created and tested in the real world. Still, it raises fundamental questions about how far AI can push biological engineering—and what could come next as these systems become more capable. In this MIT Technology Review roundtable, a senior AI reporter examines King’s experiment, the scientific hurdles that remain, and the broader implications of using AI to design biological entities.