Stanford PhD student Samuel King's 2025 use of a generative AI model to propose genetic blueprints for microscopic viruses offers a preliminary answer to whether AI can design new life forms. The work stops short of creating actual AI-generated life, but it is an early step in that direction.
The roundtable conversation, published by MIT Technology Review, focuses on this question and what King's preliminary answer means. The article frames the result as an early step, not a finished one, and notes that AI-designed life has not yet been achieved.
Because this is a single source, there are no differing viewpoints to compare. The source itself is consistent in describing the work as preliminary and distinct from AI-generated life.