OpenAI backs a new venture trying to thwart AI bio attacks

It’s a nightmare scenario: A terrorist without much training uses an artificial intelligence program to engineer a supervirus combining the incubation period of HIV, the contagiousness of measles and the mortality rate of smallpox. This is a worst-case outcome for the AI revolution, the Center for AI Safety wrote in a recent report. It’s also what’s keeping Kathleen McMahon up at night.

McMahon is the cofounder and chief executive officer of Valthos, a New York-based biosecurity software startup building tools to defend against bioweapon…