This week, while some headlines focused on the unsettling claim that an AI system had designed a working virus, a quieter preprint out of Stanford and the Arc Institute hinted at something even more momentous—and, depending on your outlook, more alarming. Researchers there reported the first generative design of entire living genomes: 16 synthetic bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—dreamed up by artificial intelligence, built in the lab, and proven to replicate, evolve, and outcompete their natural ancestor.