Bird flu poses bigger pandemic threat than AI-generated virus, experts warn

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By Ella Pickover, PA Media

Viruses that already exist are more likely to be responsible for the next global pandemic than a virus generated by artificial intelligence (AI), UK experts have said.

Bird flu should be considered to be a “high risk” pandemic source, researchers warned.

H5N1 influenza has already led to the culling of 400 million chickens in the last four years, has been found in dairy cattle in the US and a few weeks ago crossed into mink farms “which creates an even higher risk to humans than before,” they added.

It comes after a warning that AI could kill off humanity within a decade, with leading experts calling for a co-ordinated slowdown of AI development to better understand the risks.

But experts from Imperial College London said that it was “highly unlikely” that a virus created by AI would lead to a human extinction event.

And they said the risks of generative AI advancing too quickly “are in areas not particularly related to biosecurity”.