There Are Plenty of Reasons to Be Concerned About Bioweapons Development—Even Without AI

Sep 30, 2026 3:00 PM

In her new book on biological warfare, Annie Jacobsen didn’t even discuss AI because scientists can already warp Mother Nature to create extinction-level events.

We’ve been hearing a great deal recently about the specter of AI-driven human extinction. Maybe our misplaced trust in AI intelligence will set off World War III. Or AI agents will unleash widespread cyberattacks and take over the internet. Given too much autonomy, the machines will run amok. They may seek to deceive their creators—wait, that’s already happened. Suppose they conclude, like Agent Smith in The Matrix, that “human beings … are a plague, and we are the cure.” Or perhaps the chatbots help bad humans unleash a literal plague—a biological weapon.

That last one isn’t merely theoretical. A “misuse” report Anthropic made public earlier this month detailed five cases in which foreign scientists tried to evade Claude’s guardrails on “gain of function” inquiries. That’s a euphemism for when scientists tinker with a pathogen’s genes to enhance it in some way, making it more infectious, deadlier, or better able to spread among mammals, for example.

Anthropic denied those users the answers they sought and cut off their accounts, even while noting that their motives may not have been sinister. Such information also can be used to help scientist develop pandemic countermeasures like vaccines and drugs. And there’s the rub. Like so many technologies, AI included, genetic engineering can be used for both good and evil. Hence another euphemism: “dual use.”

Is humanity really better off doing the work? I have my doubts. And I have more of them after reading the latest book from Annie Jacobsen, whom I last interviewed about her best-selling book Nuclear War: A Scenario. Her new book, Biological War: A Scenario, came out in late July and follows the same template. And because I know you were about to ask, yes, I’m sure she is great fun at cocktail parties.

You’ve got to be a state!

Most everyone.

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