Annie Jacobsen skips AI in new book, citing existing bio risk

Jacobsen's new book, 'Biological War: A Scenario,' follows the template of her earlier best-seller on nuclear war, and she says her sources had serious concerns about AI-enabled bio—but she kept it out anyway to make a simpler point. That choice matters: the AI-driven extinction debate has dominated recent headlines, including Anthropic's report this month on foreign scientists trying to evade Claude's guardrails on 'gain of function' inquiries, and Jacobsen is arguing the risk predates any of it.

Her account leans on national-security reporting and government war-gaming scenarios, including one called Glade X involving Nipah virus and another looking at Russia's Soviet-era plague program. She also cites retired Air Force Colonel Tom Ehrhard, who ran Pentagon war games, saying there is no real defense against a large-scale biological attack—only ways to mitigate extermination.

The practical question her book raises is whether attention on AI's role in bioweapons will translate into scrutiny of the labs and research practices she describes. That outcome likely hinges on whether the experts she cites, including Relman and the BSL-4 staff at Fort Detrick, can push the conversation beyond a single technology.