The recent announcement of novel, viable viruses created by artificial intelligence (AI) was celebrated as a major advance in the fight against antibiotic resistance. But it also raised urgent concerns about regulation.

Alongside precision gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 and synthetic biology, AI is now making it increasingly possible to design and alter entire biological systems.

These technologies could clearly do a lot of good. The new AI-designed viruses – bacteriophages that exclusively kill bacteria – rapidly overcame antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli.

Gene-editing itself is already contributing to medical advances such as the recently approved CRISPR-based therapy for sickle cell disease. And synthetic biology is helping to tackle environmental challenges by employing algorithms to analyse data much faster.

But greater capability also brings greater risks of unintended consequences. The same tools may be deliberately misused or unwittingly create risks existing regulations were never designed to anticipate.