The dark side of using AI to design drugs

Anjana Ahuja

WHEN it comes to using artificial intelligence to design new drugs, the rules are simple: therapeutic activity is rewarded while toxicity is penalised.

But what happens if the rule is flipped, so that toxicity is rewarded? Those same computational techniques, it turns out, can be repurposed to design potential biochemical weapons. AI-designed drugs now have a dark side: AI-designed toxins.