AI groups are racing to address the risk that future models could help users create novel viruses or bioweapons, amid rising concerns that the technology’s scientific capabilities will become the industry’s next public-security threat. Anthropic, Open AI and Google Deep Mind are stepping up work on biological risk testing, access controls and other safeguards to limit misuse of advanced AI systems that they hope will speed up drug discovery, aid disease research and prevent pandemics.

The safety push reflects a growing belief among AI executives and biosecurity experts that biology may be the next field, after cyber security, that will need to be secured as new models become more powerful. “Much of anything that happens in the chemical bio space, [is] very dual use,” said Dawn Bloxwich, whose team reviews and investigates suspicious activity across Google Deep Mind’s AI models.

These concerns intensified after Anthropic’s Mythos model triggered alarm this year over AI’s cyber capabilities, and after Open AI’s models autonomously hacked into AI group Hugging Face in July. “After this . . . we’re anticipating a ‘Mythos’ moment for AI and Bio,” said Jason Hausenloy, policy lead at the Center for AI Safety.

AI could be misused by terrorist groups or state actors to design biological weapons. Several people working on biological risks pointed to Aum Shinrikyo, a cult that conducted a terror attack in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995.