This is a special post for quick takes by Jesper L.. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The AI biology threat vector is heavily bottlenecked by deployment capability and lab skills. Theory and detailed guidance alone is largely insufficient to provide a significant increase in threat level. (I say this as a somewhat experienced wet lab biologist, someone who has worked in cell biology labs, biotech labs, performed molecular biology tasks in vitro, and studied virulence of serious pathogens inside a biosafety level 2 lab)
That said, Claude Opus 4.7 is quite competent in chemistry and biology, and the first Claude model widely released that actually worries me, based on the release notes and systems card. https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-7
I will not pretend that I did not think we would see AIs perform this well on these tasks so fast.
Notionally speaking, what sort of options exist to outsource deployment and lab skills? If I submitted a dangerous sequence of RNA for synthesis (I have no idea what sorts of things could even be considered dangerous) or requested a plasmid that was designed by a very smart model, could those be synthesized by a third-party without safety checks and eventually become a danger?
I am not the best person to answer, and I should maybe avoid excessive detail on a searchable forum anyway, but yes, potentially you could request plasmids that at least togther become lethal by a third party.
Plasmids are explicitly tested for in the systems card. Home kits also could allow some serious work done outside public scrutiny. I think that (semi-)automatic labs is the real concern and this is a real but very budding area of development.