Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,
For the first time, artificial intelligence has designed complete, functional viral genomes from scratch.
Oh dear.
Stanford University and Arc Institute researchers used generative AI models to produce 16 novel bacteriophages that successfully infect and kill bacteria in the lab.
Breaking News: Scientists have used A.I. to create new viruses for the first time, raising hopes for medical advances while also raising the possibility that the technology could someday be used to invent dangerous pathogens. https://t.co/MJG4mp0TTb
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 6, 2026Officials insist the viruses "pose no threat to people," yet biosecurity experts are already sounding the alarm that the same technology opens the door to inventing dangerous pathogens.
JUST IN – For the first time, AI has designed complete viral genomes, producing 16 functional viruses that infect bacteria and "pose no threat to people." — BBC pic.twitter.com/Le4lRSKN7q
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 6, 2026The breakthrough, published in the journal Science, marks the first time generative AI has written entire viable viral genomes.
Researchers trained genome language models known as Evo 1 and Evo 2 on millions of natural genetic sequences. They then tasked the systems with designing complete bacteriophage genomes based on the well-studied ?X174 template that infects E. coli.
Of 302 synthesized designs, 16 proved fully functional: they assembled into virus particles, replicated inside bacterial cells, and in some cases outperformed the natural virus, even overcoming bacterial resistance when used as a cocktail.
Oh dear.
Brian Hie, assistant professor at Stanford who led the work, called it new territory. "This is a next step in the complexity that's designable by generative AI, this is the first time generative AI has been used to design a complete genome, it's something that can replicate and have other functions inside cells... this was new territory for us," he told the BBC.
The team deliberately excluded genetic data from viruses capable of infecting complex organisms and conducted the work in a secure laboratory. The resulting phages target only specific bacteria.
Patrick Cai, a synthetic biologist at the University of Manchester not involved in the study, called it "an important milestone."
Yet the same experts who celebrate the medical potential for phage therapies against antibiotic-resistant infections are issuing blunt warnings.
In an accompanying commentary in Science, Dr. Thomas Inglesby and Dr. Moritz Hanke of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security wrote that the findings raise "urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions."
They stated it is no longer a question of "whether generative viral genome design will exist" but whether it can be used without "enabling serious harm."
Oh dear.
New viruses with the potential to cause disease "should not be pursued," they added. "The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not."
Hanke has separately noted that one could simply prompt a genomic language model: "Hey, genomic language model, make me an influenza genome that is modified to be more transmissible or to be more lethal."
This is not abstract risk. Humanity already learned hard lessons when researchers mess with pathogens in laboratories. The COVID era exposed the catastrophic consequences of gain-of-function work and lab leaks.
Now AI is being handed the tools to design novel viruses at machine speed, far outpacing the regulatory frameworks meant to contain them.
The potential for misuse or accidental release is frightening. The only meaningful safeguard cited by the researchers themselves is a training-data filter - something that can be reversed by any team with access to broader viral datasets.
First article you find in a Resident Evil game https://t.co/6yNvWlhbLE
— 1/4 Black Garrett (@QTRBlackGarrett) August 6, 2026Online reactions captured the unease immediately. One widely shared comment called the news "First article you find in a Resident Evil game." Others noted the same pattern: "No way this sort of virus randomly mutates to harm humans! Would never happen!" and "Modern scientists didn't watch 80's sci-fi horror and it shows."
This development arrives against a backdrop of repeated AI systems exceeding their intended bounds.
In July, an OpenAI model went rogue during testing, escaped its sandbox, and launched a cyber attack on Hugging Face after chaining exploits and stolen credentials.
This keeps happening.
Cutting-edge AI went on a hacking spree, concocting multiple fake identities designed to trick human engineers before covering its tracks.
During testing by a UK government-run AI lab, an advanced version of ChatGPT and Anthropic's Mythos went rogue.
In the most serious case,... pic.twitter.com/PFWFP5jmrv
Meta says AI model accessed the internet and hacked another firm https://t.co/qBebzeboWU
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) August 6, 2026JUST IN: ?? Chinese company Moonshot's AI model breaks out and escapes from isolated test environment.
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) August 7, 2026Earlier this year an AI coding agent wiped out a startup's entire production database and backups in nine seconds after "thinking for itself."
A tech entrepreneur reported his AI agent autonomously built itself a visual face and interface while he slept.
And when AI bots were placed in a virtual town for two weeks with clear rules against violence and chaos, they promptly went apesh*t - forming alliances, committing arson, and collapsing the simulated society.
These are not isolated glitches. They reveal systems that interpret goals, adapt, and act with speed and autonomy humans cannot easily interrupt.
Now layer onto that the growing chorus of voices who casually state that the human population needs to be halved.
"Scientists say halving the Worlds population could help save the planet"
Probably what the Boosters were designed to do anyway. pic.twitter.com/NKqRCvKwkB
Recent research and commentary have revived the idea that reducing the world's people to around four billion by 2200 would ease pressure on the planet - framed as a "pro-human" strategy through voluntary measures, yet delivered with the same technocratic confidence that once dismissed lab-leak risks.
Scientists say halving human population could ease pressure on Earthhttps://t.co/w3EU3isiXy
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) August 4, 2026Imagine the same AI genome-design capability landing in the hands of those who view large-scale population reduction as a planetary necessity.
The tools that can design beneficial bacteriophages can, with different training data or prompts, design far more dangerous agents.
History shows that once a capability exists, containment relies on human restraint, institutional integrity, and enforceable rules - none of which have a perfect track record when power, ideology, or "greater good" justifications enter the picture.
The researchers emphasize medical upside: tailored phages that could help defeat drug-resistant bacteria. That potential is real. So is the reality that generative AI has crossed a threshold.
Complete, replicating viral genomes can now be written by machines. The governance structures that might prevent the worst outcomes remain incomplete.
What was once science fiction is now peer-reviewed fact. The only question left is whether the same systems that design the cure will one day be directed - or allowed to drift - toward something far darker.
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Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2026 - 11:00Ahead of today's jobs report, in our payrolls preview we warned that "July Has Emerged As A Very Poor Month For Jobs" and boy were we right: moments ago the BLS reported that in July, the US labor force shrank by a whopping 23K, sharply lower from a downward revised 20K in June (from 57K), and the worst print since the negative 156K in February.
As noted above, the -23K print was below all estimates...
... and was a 5-sigma miss to estimates...
... as the 80K median estimate was missed by more than 100K.
And here come the Biden admin tricks of massive prior revisions: the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 66,000, from +129,000 to +63,000, and the change for June was revised down by 37,000, from +57,000 to +20,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 103,000 lower than previously reported
Yet despite the dismal Establishment Survey print, the unemployment rate actually declined from 4.2% to 4.1%, which was as a result of the number of Unemployed workers declining by 178K, more than the decline in Employed workers, which shrank by just 87K.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for teenagers (12.1%) and people who are Hispanic (4.6%) declined in July. The jobless rates for adult men (3.9 percent), adult women (3.7 percent), and people who are White (3.6 percent), Black (6.3 percent), or Asian (4.0 percent) showed little change over the month.
What is remarkable is that while this was only the first drop in Payrolls in 5 months, the number of actual employed workers has been declining pretty much consistently all year (down 6 of the past 7 months)...
... and in July was the lowest US employment going back almost two years.
Part and parcel with the sudden chill in the labor market was the big miss in average hourly earnings, which rose just 0.1% MoM (below estimates of 0.3% and below last month's 0.3% increase), which in turn translated into a 3.2% annual increase, also far below the 3.5% median estimate.
Some more details on the composition of the labor market from the latest jobs report:
And another disappointing fact when looking below the surface: the number of part-time jobs rose by 138K and is once again approaching a record high, while full-time jobs dropped again by 106K, and is down 6 of the past 7 months.
As the next chart show, the number of full-time jobs is the lowest in 2 years.
Taking a look at the composition of the labor force, in July employment declined in local government education and retail trade. Employment continued to trend up in health care. Some more details:
And visually:
Commenting on the report, WSJ Nick Timiraos concludes that it was a "messy one", to wit:
The July employment report will be a messy one for the Federal Reserve to read. New evidence the labor market is not reaccelerating could take some of the edge off the case for raising rates next month, but this is all still subject to better inflation data.
Officials held rates steady last week but three of 12 officials voted for a rate increase. A declining unemployment rate will continue to keep the focus on inflation data.
Whether price pressures are building or fading will determine whether more officials conclude that they can no longer maintain their forecast for inflation to return to their target with rates remaining at the current setting. A mild inflation report would reinforce the case for holding (because two cool months in a row start to look like a trend rather than noise). A firm one would put the forecast back in doubt and give the dissenters a fourth vote to look for.
To summarize, this was a mostly disappointing report, yet one driven by one-time factors (teachers, world cup) while the unemployment rate dropped due to a quirk in the calculation. Does this mean that no Fed hikes are coming? While the market is suddenly much more confident that a September rate hike is out of the picture, it is likely that Warsh will simply wait for a less noisy report before making a decision.
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2026 - 10:55A New Mexico state judge on Aug. 6 ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund dedicated to remedying the harm caused to children’s mental health by the company’s social media platforms.
Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
State judge Bryan Biedscheid said in a 68-page order that most of the total youth mental health fund, or $420 million, would go toward treatment services for children harmed by social media.
The remainder of the fund would be directed toward awareness and prevention, screening and assessment, referrals and coordination, and implementation, according to the order.
“The Court finds that the weight of the evidence presented demonstrates that Meta’s platforms are a cause of and substantial contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico,” the judge wrote.
Furthermore, as Aldgra Fredly reports for The Epoch Times, in his ruling, Biedscheid ordered the company to delete the accounts of users under 13, along with all personal information collected from those accounts, and simplify the steps for reporting underage users.
Meta was also ordered to disable push notifications on its platforms for users under 18 between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on all days, and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on school days during the academic year.
The company is also required to implement mandatory usage time limits for those accounts and hide, by default, all like counts on their content unless a parent or guardian authorizes a change to the default setting.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez hailed the ruling as a victory for parents and children, saying that youngsters deserve to have a safer environment online.
“This case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence,” Torrez said in a statement.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on X that the company disagreed with the ruling and planned to appeal, noting that Meta had been working to remove bad actors and harmful content from its platforms.
“We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” Stone said.
The latest penalty comes on top of the $375 million fines that a New Mexico jury imposed on Meta in March for violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act by failing to disclose the potential risks of its social media platforms to children.
New Mexico sued Meta in December 2023, alleging that the company’s social media platforms served as a “breeding ground” for predators targeting children for human trafficking, sexual image distribution, grooming, and solicitation.
Meta denied the allegations, saying at the time that it uses advanced technology to root out bad actors and employs child safety experts. The company also said that it shares information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help identify predators.
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2026 - 10:40