MIT Technology Review Roundtable Discusses AI-Proposed Virus Blueprints

The article states that King, then a Stanford University PhD student, used a generative AI model in 2025 to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. MIT Technology Review says this is not yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next. The conversation is available only to MIT Technology Review subscribers, with options to listen to the session or watch it below.

In the interview, O'Donnell speaks with King about his work, his selection as one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, and new ways of seeing biology. The listed speakers are James O'Donnell, an AI reporter, and Samuel King, a bioengineering PhD candidate at Stanford University and the Arc Institute. The publicly available article text does not include direct quotations from the session.

The roundtable appears alongside related MIT Technology Review coverage on artificial intelligence. That coverage includes an article arguing that large language models do not reason, ten years after AlphaGo's match against Go champion Lee Sedol; an article suggesting that AI's recursive self-improvement might not come as quickly as some expect; and an article stating that AI agents are not yet creative enough to carry out genuinely innovative open-ended AI research. These pieces are presented as separate deep dives, not as findings from King's work.

Editor's Summary

MIT Technology Review published a roundtable with Stanford bioengineering PhD candidate Samuel King and senior AI reporter James O'Donnell about King's 2025 use of a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses. The article presents the work as a preliminary step, not AI-generated life, while noting that AI-generated life could be a future possibility. The discussion also covers King's recognition as an Innovators Under 35 and broader questions about AI's capabilities in biology.