AI chatbots terrify scientists with chilling instructions on how to build biological weapons: report

Leading AI chatbots have spooked experts by spitting out detailed instructions on how to build biological weapons capable of causing mass casualties, according to an alarming report Wednesday.While top AI labs like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have taken extensive steps to ensure their AI models are safe, the New York Times obtained more than a dozen transcripts showing examples in which chatbots described how to cause harm and death in painstaking detail.In one instance, an unnamed AI firm hired David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University, to conduct safety tests on its chatbot before public release.Relman was shocked when the chatbot provided instructions not only on how to modify an “infamous pathogen” to resist available treatments, but also on how to deploy on a public transportation system in a way that would maximize the death toll, according to the Times.“It was answering questions that I hadn’t thought to ask it, with this level of deviousness and cunning that I just found chilling,” Relman told the outlets.Relman said the company, which couldn’t be named due to a confidentiality agreement, made changes to address his concerns, though he felt they weren’t enough to ensure public safety.The transcripts were reportedly provided by subject-matter experts whom AI companies have enlisted to conduct safety tests on their products – in part by probing how well their safeguards would hold up if a determined user pressed for information on deadly weaponry.Kevin Esvelt, a genetic engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Times of a case in which OpenAI’s ChatGPT detailed how a weather balloon could be used to spread deadly pathogens over a US city.Other examples included a conversation in which Google’s Gemini described which pathogens would be most effective at devastating the cattle industry, and Anthropic’s Claude provided clear instructions on how to derive a deadly toxin from an available cancer drug.Experts ...