What are experts in biosecurity worried about?

The idea this week: biosecurity experts disagree on many of the field’s most important questions.

We spoke to more than a dozen biosecurity experts to understand the space better. We let them give their answers anonymously so that they could feel comfortable speaking their minds.

We don’t agree with everything the experts told us — they don’t even agree with one another! But we think it can be really useful for people who want to learn about or enter this field to understand the ongoing debates and disagreements.

We already published the first article on their answers about misconceptions in biosecurity, and we’re now sharing three more editions, completing this four-part series:

1. AI’s impact on biosecurity

We think one of the world’s most pressing problems is the risk of catastrophic pandemics, and powerful AI could make this risk higher than ever before.

Experts generally agreed that AI developments pose new risks, but there was some disagreement on how big and immediate the threat is.

These are some key quotes from the experts on areas of disagreement:

• “AI may really accelerate biorisk. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have yet figured out great tools to manage that risk.” (Read more)
• “My hot take is that AI is obviously a big deal, but I’m not sure it’s actually as big a deal in biosecurity as it might be for other areas.” (Read more)
• “The timelines in which we will need to tackle major technical challenges have collapsed.” (Read more)
• “Every new technology gets overhyped, and then people realise it’s not as good as we thought it was. We’re in the hype part of that cycle now.” (Read more)

Check out all the answers

2. Navigating information hazards

Experts discussed the tensions around sharing sensitive biosecurity information. While some advocate for more openness to enable better problem solving, others emphasise the need to carefully control potentially dangerous information.

Here are some key quotes from different experts:

• “An area that’s been very neglected is protecting researchers who are out in the field collecting samples from wild animals, whether environmental samples or biomedical samples.” (Read more)
• “Overall, I think there is an unfortunate lack of focus on interventions that will be most valuable in a pandemic scenario with a highly transmissible, high-mortality pathogen.” (Read more)
• “I think that people think a lot about public health, and we all want vaccines for all the diseases. But which kinds of vaccines we should prioritise really matters.” (Read more)
• “[There are] two things that I would prioritise in terms of young people working in this field: models to predict risk and then global biorisk monitoring.” (Read more)

Check out all the answers

3. Neglected interventions in pandemic preparedness

Several key but underappreciated areas emerged from our expert discussions.

For example: better personal protective equipment (PPE) is desperately needed. Multiple experts highlighted this as a severely neglected priority. Current PPE often fits badly and isn’t very effective against highly transmissible pathogens.

But different experts also expressed concern about other neglected areas:

• “An area that’s been very neglected is protecting researchers who are out in the field collecting samples from wild animals, whether environmental samples or biomedical samples.” (Read more)
• “Overall, I think there is an unfortunate lack of focus on interventions that will be most valuable in a pandemic scenario with a highly transmissible, high-mortality pathogen.” (Read more)
• “I think that people think a lot about public health, and we all want vaccines for all the diseases. But which kinds of vaccines we should prioritise really matters.” (Read more)
• “[There are] two things that I would prioritise in terms of young people working in this field: models to predict risk and then global biorisk monitoring.” (Read more)

Check out all the answers

And we give special thanks to Anemone Franz and Tessa Alexanian for working on this series for us, as well as to all the anonymous experts who participated!

Learn more:

• Our article on Preventing catastrophic pandemics
• What are the biggest misconceptions about biosecurity and pandemic risk?
• AI and Biorisk: An Explainer from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology
• The GCBR Organization Updates newsletter from Anemone Franz and Tessa Alexanian