Home/Technology/Roundtables: A Conversation With the Creator of AI-Designed Viruses

Roundtables: A Conversation With the Creator of AI-Designed Viruses

TechnologyOctober 9, 20262 min readAttributed summary
Roundtables: A Conversation With the Creator of AI-Designed Viruses
Friday, October 16, 2026 Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King came up with a preliminary answer when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blue
Reading Settings

Join a subscriber-only conversation with one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35.

Can AI design new life forms? In 2025, Stanford University PhD student Samuel King came up with a preliminary answer when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. It isn’t yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. Join senior AI reporter James O'Donnell as he interviews King about his work, being named one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 and new ways of seeing biology.

Going live on October 16th at 18:30 BST / 1:30pm EDT / 10:30am PDT

Speakers: James O'Donnell, AI Reporter, and Samuel King, Bioengineering PhD Candidate, Stanford University/Arc Institute

Ten years after AlphaGo’s match against Go champion Lee Sedol, today’s AI still isn’t tapping into the machinery that made that win possible.

AI agents are not yet creative enough to carry out genuinely innovative open-ended AI research, it seems.

Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.

Meet the new kids nipping at the heels of the AI giants.

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at [email protected] with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Related technology stories

AI breakthroughs in robotics won’t change your life any time soon
Sourced report
technologyreview.com26 minutes ago

AI breakthroughs in robotics won’t change your life any time soon

The story is a collaboration between MIT Technology Review and Aventine, a non-profit research foundation that creates and supports content about how technology and science are changing the way we liv

19 min briefingRead signal →