The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has established a two-year partnership with the nonprofit Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) to secure biotechnologies from risks associated by artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
NIST and EBRC will develop screening and safety tools to defend against the potential misuse of AI related to nucleic acid synthesis – a growing field of synthetic biology with great promise but also serious risks.
The new collaboration was initiated by NIST to fulfill a tasking in President Biden’s October 2023 executive order on AI. The executive order charges multiple agencies — including NIST — with developing standards, best practices, and implementation guides for nucleic acid synthesis, considering advances in AI technologies.
“The Executive Order on AI calls on NIST to initiate an effort to engage with industry and other stakeholders to develop safeguards to defend against potential misuse of AI related to the synthesis of genetic material,” NIST said in the announcement.
“This agreement is the first step toward promoting safe research in engineering biology as tasked to NIST under the recent AI executive order,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Laurie E. Locascio. “The promise of this technology is immense, but clearly safeguards are needed to protect the public, and this is an important first step toward creating them.”
Researchers have used synthetic nucleic acids to achieve groundbreaking biotechnology innovations, such as new drugs and therapies, but the growing availability and ease of synthesizing nucleic acids has raised safety concerns — particularly considering advances in AI — that could pose risks to the public, environment, and national security.
According to NIST, organizations performing nucleic acid synthesis must be aware of AI-related risks, and need guidance in identifying and mitigating those risks.
As part of the cooperative agreement, the organizations will solicit input from industry, universities, government agencies, and other relevant stakeholders.
