Intelligence Squared Will AI Design New Organisms From Scratch? With Adrian Woolfson
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Feb 18, 2026 Adrian Woolfson, co-founder of Genero and author with a medical and research background, explores how AI meets synthetic biology. He discusses decoding the genome’s grammar, designing new organisms, resurrecting species, ecosystem risks, genetic firewalls, and who should decide when life can be rewritten.
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Urgency To Democratize The Debate
- Rapid advances mean designing and building life is moving from theory to reality right now.
- Adrian wrote his book to equip the public to participate in decisions about this unprecedented shift.
Genome As A Missing Instruction Manual
- The genome functions as a gene kit containing the minimal information needed to build an organism.
- We lack the instruction manual—the "grammar of life"—that would explain how genomic parts assemble into living systems.
Sidney Brenner's Model-Kit Metaphor
- Adrian recalls Sidney Brenner likening the genome to a model kit with parts and an instruction manual.
- He uses this childhood model-kit image to explain why we must reverse-engineer life's grammar.
