MIT Technology Review to Host Roundtable With Researcher Behind AI-Proposed Viral Genomes
MIT Technology Review will host a subscriber-only roundtable on Oct. 16, 2026, featuring Stanford bioengineering PhD candidate Samuel King, who used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses in 2025.
The roundtable is available only to MIT Technology Review subscribers, according to the event listing. James O'Donnell, a senior AI reporter at MIT Technology Review, will interview King. The conversation will cover King's work, his being named one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, and new ways of seeing biology, the listing says.
In 2025, King came up with a preliminary answer to whether AI can design new life forms when he used a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses, MIT Technology Review said. The work is not yet an example of AI-generated life, but that could be next, the publication said.
King is a bioengineering PhD candidate at Stanford University and the Arc Institute. The event listing names O'Donnell and King as the speakers. MIT Technology Review's related coverage includes articles on whether large language models can reason, whether AI's recursive self-improvement might come slowly, and whether AI agents are creative enough to carry out genuinely innovative open-ended AI research.