OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei don’t agree on much about this, but they do agree that it would suck, and they signed their names to an open letter saying so. The letter called it “a rare moment of consensus among stakeholders who are often at odds.”
Other letter-signers include Demis Hassabis and Alexander Wang, the AI heads of Google DeepMind and Meta, respectively, as well as other AI practitioners and researchers, as well as dozens of scientists and policy experts.
The central thrust of the letter actually has nothing to do with AI; It is directed at policy makers, and simply demands that such legislation be passed for those with the ability to possess synthetic nucleic acids. Specifically, it asks that when requests come in for DNA (and probably RNA, although the letter does not mention this), they should be scanned for “sequences of concern” and the synthesized nucleic acids should be checked for “validity to the customer” before they are sent out in the mail. It also calls for data about orders to be recorded and potentially made available to investigators, claiming, “Only awareness of traceability prevents abuse.”
The rapid development of AI only adds to the urgency. The letter states that because AI is progressing so rapidly, “there is a real possibility that the knowledge barriers that have historically prevented bad actors from obtaining biological weapons will be meaningfully destroyed.”
Wired notes that the letter was conducted by two think tanks: the Institute for Progress, which is described as non-partisan, and the Foundation for American Innovation, which is clearly right-wing.
OpenAI, for its part, has recently taken steps aimed at holding the company and its leader accountable. It released a policy white paper on Tuesday that outlines a plan for vetting AI models at the federal level that is more stringent than the plan in President Trump’s recent executive order. On Wednesday, Altman also met with Bernie Sanders, the staunchest critic of AI currently in the US Senate.
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