Will the next pandemic be of human origin? How AI upsets the biological threat

In 1979, a mysterious disease hit the industrial city of Sverdlovsk, in the former USSR (today Ekaterinburg, in Russia). Consequently, More than 60 people die from a strange infection, officially attributed to contaminated meat. Consequently, It was not until the fall of the iron curtain in 1992. Furthermore, to discover the truth: it was in fact an accident in a secret factory of Soviet organic weapons, a program yet prohibited by international treaty. Consequently, This secret, kept for decades, reveals one of the major difficulties in the fight against biological weapons: their invisibility.

Unlike a nuclear silo, easily identifiable from the air, a biotechnology laboratory is not distinguished from an ordinary medical center. Furthermore, A modified virus leaves few traces and a caused epidemic is likely to be mistaken for a natural epidemic. For example, This ambiguity offers attackers a “Plausible denial”. Consequently, will next pandemic human origin? Explain an article from the Vox site: impossible to prove the human origin of a scourge, even for intelligence services. Similarly, The occurrence of the COVID-19. Meanwhile, whose origin is still debated, illustrates how difficult it is to attribute a pandemic to a specific cause.

Today, this kind of threat evolves at high speed. The progress of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology make the creation of artificial pathogens easier, faster and less expensive. Tools like the CRISPR genetic scissor system democratize genetic manipulation. AI now makes will next pandemic human origin? it possible to design entirely new proteins or viruses, potentially more dangerous than the anthrax which poisoned the inhabitants of Sverdlovsk.

Today. nightmarish scenarios still impossible a few years ago are quite possible: virus combining the influenza containers to the lethality of Ebola, pathogens targeting populations according to their genetic profile, etc.

An experience led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2023 showed that students. helped by chatbots, could reconstruct plans to assemble fatal viruses from genetic equipment ordered online. If the technical obstacles remain significant, the access threshold drops dangerously, including for non -state groups.

Will next pandemic human origin?

Defense must catch up

Faced with this technological offensive, defense must innovate. The example of Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston -based biotechnology company, illustrates the advent of a new generation of detection tools. Thanks to AI. the company has developed Endar, a system capable of identifying the signature of genetic manipulation in a DNA will next pandemic human origin? sample to determine whether a pathogen has been artificially designed.

This type of “Bioradar” could make it possible to lift the veil on the origin of a new infectious agent. quickly orient the health or even political response. But the race is far from won: how often. technologies allowing to create threats progress faster than those intended to counter them.

COVID-19 Pandemic also showed that disinformation can amplify chaos. The distrust of vaccines. health authorities, maintained by social networks, complicates the management of crises, different actors may have an interest in spreading this or that rumor, well supported by the generative AI, capable of producing false evidence or simulating bioterrorist attacks. The perfect recipe for initiating major geopolitical crises.

For experts, it is illusory to believe that it will be possible to completely regulate or prohibit these technologies. The only way out is to develop countermeasures as sophisticated as threats. store protective equipment, will next pandemic human origin? monitor the circulation of pathogens in real time, and strengthen social resilience in the face of health crises. The challenge is not only to avoid the next pandemic. but to know how to recognize it, whether natural or artificial.

The organic war, formerly reserved for states, could tomorrow become the weapon of more modest groups, even isolated individuals. In this new landscape. the ability to detect, attribute and counter biotechnological threats will be as crucial as nuclear deterrence in the XX^e century.