What AI can and cannot do in biosecurity

Katelyn Jetelina · 16 Sept 2026 · yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Katelyn Jetelina did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Viruses face an inherent trade-off between being highly lethal and being highly contagious, rarely achieving both.

Their wordsThey face a fundamental biological trade-off: highly lethal or highly contagious, but typically not both.
Our reading
AI-assisted biological research still depends on physical wet-lab work that remains a necessary bottleneck for now.

Their wordsThis physical work will remain necessary for the foreseeable future.
Our reading
AI increases biosecurity risk at the margin, with how much depending on capability trajectories, biosecurity responses, and governance.

Their wordsAI plausibly increases the risk at the margin. Whether that increase is small or catastrophic depends on factors such as AI capability trajectories, biosecurity responses, governance, etc.