AI has no morality. An evil organisation with no knowledge of microbiology can make use of AI to customise a pathogen and spark a pandemic. Recently in China, a smart watch manufacturer trained its AI to counter Chinese propaganda. It works both ways.
Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari:
“Terrorists focused on events in one corner of the world might use Al to instigate a global pandemic. The terrorists might be more versed in some apocalyptic mythology than in the science of epidemiology, but they just need to set the goal, and all else will be done by their AI. The AI could synthesize a new pathogen, order it from commercial laboratories or print it in biological 3-D printers, and devise the best strategy to spread it around the world, via air- ports or food supply chains. What if the AI synthesizes a virus that is as deadly as Ebola, as contagious as COVID-19, and as slow act- ing as AIDS? By the time the first victims begin to die, and the world is alerted to the danger, most people on earth might have al- ready been infected.¹As we have seen in previous chapters, human civilization is threatened not only by physical and biological weapons of mass destruction like atom bombs and viruses. Human civilization could also be destroyed by weapons of social mass destruction, like stories that undermine our social bonds. An AI developed in one country could be used to unleash a deluge of fake news, fake money, and fake humans so that people in numerous other countries lose the ability to trust anything or anyone.”