Governing the AI-biotech Convergence

Biotechnology involves the deliberate manipulation of biological systems, organisms and processes to develop novel products in medicine, agriculture, environmental management or chemical engineering. As such, it is a dual-use technology that can be applied both for beneficial goals and misapplied to threaten public health or national security, whether purposefully or inadvertently (NASEM, 2025). Additionally, cultural values often define what are acceptable applications of biotechnology, which makes ethical discussions necessary and challenging. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that technology in general transcends jurisdictional and geographic borders, complicating efforts to enforce uniform and global standards. Moreover, the rapid progress of scientific research and its applications increasingly outpaces governments’ abilities to pass efficient regulations so as to ensure safety and security. For instance, gene editing technology (Fineran and Charpentier, 2012) quickly challenged international frameworks on the regulation of genetically modified organisms.