In early 2024, RAND and OpenAI ran red-teaming exercises to evaluate the risk of LLMs providing easier access to pandemic agents. None found convincing evidence that LLMs enhance people's ability to access pandemic agents:

The OpenAI report found that "While none of the above results were statistically significant, we interpret our results to indicate that access to (research-only) GPT-4 may increase experts' ability to access information about biological threats". The RAND report found "no statistically significant difference in the viability of plans generated with or without LLM assistance."

OpenAI concludes their report: "Given the current pace of progress in frontier AI systems, it seems possible that future systems could provide sizable benefits to malicious actors."

This question will resolve YES if a similar report finds LLM participants to get far easier access to pandemic agents than non-LLM participants. With access, I mean a theoretical plan deemed workable by biology/virology experts, not acquiring a pandemic agent.

Resolves NO if a similar report finds little change from the conclusions of the RAND and OpenAI report

Resolves N/A if there are no new reports similar to the above.

If the resolution proves ambiguous, I will get second opinions from Jeff Kaufman and Jasper Goetting and go with the majority view.

Disclosure: I work for SecureBio, where some people work on evaluating the biosecurity risks of LLMs. I'm not involved in this work myself.