I commend and congratulate Anthropic and its scientists for this work. Such a novel enzyme system could potentially be a tremendously useful tool for accelerating biological research and engineering biological systems. However, it is important to point out that if any other scientist attempted something like this using Claude, they would likely be immediately flagged or banned as a potential biosecurity threat! It is also important to recognize that scientists working at most major US research institutions, as well as many reputable institutions around the world, are no less trained, regulated, or trustworthy than those working at Anthropic. For example, why aren’t these Claude models available to all scientists at the NIH, a highly secure government research agency, or to researchers at America’s leading biomedical institutions, many of which undergo rigorous biosafety and biosecurity oversight? Given all the justifications Anthropic has offered for restricting access to its most capable models, I believe we should seriously question its assumption that it can vet scientists more effectively than the US government, established regulatory agencies, or leading biomedical research institutions. What gives a private AI company the authority to decide which qualified scientists can be trusted to conduct advanced biological research? In any case, I’m happy that Anthropic published these findings, and I encourage its scientists to continue doing more of this kind of impactful research and much less fearmongering!