The biote-bot hybrid. The ultimate biothreat merging nanobots, AI-enabled cybernetics and synthetic biology
Manousos E. Kambouris, Yiannis Manoussopoulos, Aristea Velegraki, George P. Patrinos
Abstract
The paper intends to warn stakeholders, by using open sources, of the possibility of extremely small, nano-/pico-aerial vehicles controlled locally or remotely by artificial intelligence mindsets to deliver, on specific hosts and tissues, either diverse bioagents produced by conventional and synthetic (micro)biology, including xenobiota or bionic microbiota or existing microbiota selected from natural reservoirs. The accuracy in delivery would leverage minute quantities of pathogens to cause mass-scale bioevents. Such hybrids (biote-bots) would increase the effectiveness of unfit but virulent pathogens, preserve the carried biota for the trip and contain bioagents' weaponization footprint to levels below the detection threshold of current regimes, while complicating immune response and denying pre-infection detection and identification. To respond, we suggest that novel diagnostics and surveillance amenities are needed, prompting cooperation of experts from Medicine, medical instruments/diagnostics, artificial Intelligence and from disciplines tackling cybernetics, remote sensing, surveying and tracking.