AI heavyweights warn their tech could help terrorists develop bioweapons

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei and Microsoft AI leader signed an open letter urging mandatory screening of synthetic nucleic acid orders and equipment. The letter calls for recordkeeping of synthesis orders and sequence data to trace potentially dangerous activities. It warns that rapidly improving AI models combined with accessible synthetic DNA could lower barriers to biological weapons development.