Reducing Risks at the Convergence of Artificial Intelligence and the Life Sciences


Strengthening AI governance to safeguard AI-enabled tools for engineering living systems from misuse

Challenge

Rapid advances at the convergence of AI and the life sciences offer significant potential benefits but if misused pose potentially catastrophic risks that must be addressed by governments, industry, the scientific community, and civil society.

Action

Develop a global forum to discuss governance approaches and practical tools to safeguard AIxBio capabilities and explore novel technical guardrails.

Results

Develop and promote international deployment of effective safeguards that secure the benefits of AIxBio capabilities while guarding against the risks of misuse.

The world is experiencing a 21st century revolution in bioscience and biotechnology, which is now accelerating due to the convergence of artificial intelligence with the life sciences. These advances offer tremendous potential societal benefits—including for human health and economic development—but they also pose significant risks. The availability of increasingly sophisticated and widely distributed tools for engineering living systems, which continue to evolve with rapid advances in AI, has made the world vulnerable to the possibility of accidental or deliberate misuse of capabilities at the intersection of AI and the life sciences (AIxBio capabilities).

Scientists in academia and industry have demonstrated the successful application of artificial intelligence to predict protein folding, which is a major advance in fundamental bioscience research. Scientists are now looking to apply AI to developing novel protein designs, and to broader challenges across the whole of the bioscience and bioengineering enterprise. While these fundamental technology advances have the potential to be extremely valuable for basic research and medical applications, there is also a significant risk that these tools could be exploited by malicious actors to develop novel toxins or enhance pathogens for use as bioweapons.

Scientists and technologists are moving quickly with the goal of providing widely distributed open-source AIxbio capabilities. However, there is limited shared understanding of potential biosecurity risks and no guidelines for how to guard against potential misuse of these tools.

Successfully reducing biological risks that may arise from the misuse of AI tools will require a layered defense at multiple points throughout the bioscience and biotechnology research and development life cycle.  This effort will require international collaboration that draws on a range of capabilities and expertise across sectors. Safeguarding AIxBio capabilities will necessitate ambitious and collaborative efforts between government policymakers, leading innovators in industry and academia, and biosecurity experts.

NTI is developing a new AIxBio Global Forum to establish a platform for discussion among government policy makers, AI model developers, and biosecurity experts. The forum will enable the development of a shared understanding of the opportunities and risks posed by the convergence of AI and the life sciences, sharing of best practices for safeguarding AIxBio capabilities, and pursuit of a shared research agenda for advancing these goals.

NTI is also conducting cutting edge research on guardrails for AI enabled biodesign tools and partnering with international experts to advance pilot projects that explore novel technical guardrails that can meaningfully reduce risks of deliberate or accidental misuse.

Activity

2025


NTI at the Munich Security Conference: Reducing Nuclear and Biological Risks Together

News

NTI at the Munich Security Conference: Reducing Nuclear and Biological Risks Together

NTI will join world leaders and policy makers at the 2025 Munich Security Conference (MSC) where NTI Co-Chair and CEO Ernest J. Moniz and colleagues will host multiple side events focused on reducing nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats imperiling humanity.

2024


How to prevent AI-enabled bioterrorism

Risky Business

How to prevent AI-enabled bioterrorism

AI biodesign tools offer many beneficial uses, from engineered crops to vaccine development, but tools that can engineer biological agents could also be misused to cause harm.




NTI Convenes the First International AI-bio Forum

News

NTI Convenes the First International AI-bio Forum

NTI | bio convened more than 25 high-level biosecurity professionals, AI experts, and policymakers for the inaugural meeting of the International AI-Bio Forum.

2023


The Convergence of Artificial Intelligence and the Life Sciences

Report

The Convergence of Artificial Intelligence and the Life Sciences

New report from NTI | bio offers recommendations for urgent actions that leaders within government, industry, the scientific community, and civil society should take to safeguard AI-bio capabilities.

Close

My Resources