Artificial intelligence could be misused to design biological weapons, warn scientists after their AI came up with 40,000 potentially toxic drugs in just six hours

Artificial intelligence could be misused to design highly toxic chemical and biological weapons, warn scientists.

The computer algorithms are a force for good, identifying new forms of antibiotics and medicine to combat Covid infection.

But four researchers involved in AI-based drug discovery have now found that the technology could easily be manipulated to search for toxic nerve agents.

The four were asked by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection to look at whether AI could be used by those with ulterior motives – and their AI came up with 40,000 potentially toxic drugs in six hours.

They have highlighted their concerns in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

Read more: Artificial intelligence could be misused to design biological weapons, warn scientists after their AI came up with 40,000 potentially toxic drugs in just six hours