An artificial intelligence model was able to create 40,000 chemical weapons compounds in just six hours, after being given the task by researchers.

A team of scientists were using AI to look for compounds that could be used to cure disease, and part of this involves filtering out any that could kill a human.

As part of a conference on potentially negative implications of new technology, biotech startup Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, from Raleigh, North Carolina, 'flipped a switch' in its AI algorithm, and had it find the most lethal compounds.

The team wanted to see just how quickly and easily an artificial intelligence algorithm could be abused, if it were set on a negative, rather than positive task. 

Once in 'bad mode' the AI was able to invent thousands of new chemical combinations, many of which resembled the most dangerous nerve agents in use today, according to a report by .

Among the compounds invented by the AI, were some similar to VX, an extremely toxic nerve agents, that can cause twitching in even tiny doses.

The researchers said one of the scariest aspects of their discovery, was how easy it was to take a widely available dataset of toxic chemicals, and use AI to design chemical weapons similar to the most dangerous currently.

A team of scientists were using AI to look for compounds that could be used to cure disease, but decided to 'set it to evil mode', and have it look for bio-weapons.

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Creating a compound as powerful as VX was a shock to the researchers, as even a tiny drop of this chemical can cause a human to twitch. 

A large enough dose can lead to convulsions and stop a person from breathing, and the new compound created by the AI could ave a similar effect, the team predict. 

Fabio Urbina, lead author 크리에이티브 연구소 of the paper, said they have a lot of datasets of molecules that have been tested to see if they are toxic or 크리에이티브 연구소 not.

'In particular, the one that we focus on here is VX.

It is an inhibitor of what's known as acetylcholinesterase,' he told The Verge.

'Whenever you do anything muscle-related, your neurons use acetylcholinesterase as a signal to basically say 'go move your muscles.'

'The way VX is lethal is it actually stops your diaphragm, your lung muscles, from being able to move so your lungs become paralyzed.'

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The idea for 'flipping the switch' on the AI to turn it 'bad' came from the Convergence Conference, organised by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection.

The goal is to explore the implication that new tools and 크리에이티브 연구소 developments could have in the realm of chemical and biological weapons, even unintentionally.  

Meeting every two years, the conferences bring together an international group of scientific and disarmament experts to explore the current state of the art in the chemical and biological fields and their trajectories. 

'We got this invite to talk about machine learning and how it can be misused in our space.

It's something we never really thought about before,' said Urbina.

'But it was just very easy to realize that as we're building these machine learning models to get better and better at predicting toxicity in order to avoid toxicity, all we have to do is sort of flip the switch around and say, 'You know, instead of going away from toxicity, what if we do go toward toxicity?''

The team wanted to see just how quickly and easily an artificial intelligence algorithm could be abused, if it were set on a negative, rather than positive task.

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The machine learning specialist works to implement models in the area of drug discovery, and a large fraction of them focuses on how toxic a compound might be.

'If it turns out you have this wonderful drug that lowers blood pressure fantastically, but it hits one of those really important, say, heart channels - then basically, it's a no-go because that's just too dangerous,' said Urbina. 

They use large datasets of what is toxic, how it is toxic and 크리에이티브 연구소 its impact.

They do this to determine whether potential new drugs will prove too dangerous for humans.