Fund defensive tech
Public funding for defensive technology. Public money for early pathogen warning, pandemic protection and AI tools that patch critical systems.
What it does
The government funds technology that blunts AI-enabled catastrophes: a nationwide network that spots new pathogens early, better masks and air-cleaning for pandemics, and AI tools that find and patch security holes in water, power and hospital systems. This is the 'defensive acceleration' idea.
Applies to: Federal biodefense and cyber-defense programs.
- Fund a national network that sequences samples to catch new pathogens early.
- Fund better masks, air-cleaning and stockpiles for pandemics.
- Fund AI tools that find and patch vulnerabilities in water, power and hospital systems.
Where things stand
Defensive spending exists but is small and mostly falling: CDC wastewater and traveler testing, the pandemic-medicine agency BARDA, the national stockpile and CISA. There is no large program aimed at AI-enabled threats.
Why it costs almost no lead
It spends public money, not lab time. Frontier labs lose at most a day to competition for talent.
Biggest unknown: How much defenses can keep up with AI-enabled attacks, and how quickly a new program could be built: a national pathogen-detection network would take two to three years.
Why it lowers p(doom) by ~0.15%
Makes it harder for an AI-enabled bioweapon or cyberattack to become a catastrophe, by catching outbreaks early and patching critical systems.
If AI makes attacks easier, stronger defenses cap the damage. It does nothing about AI slipping out of human control, and defense often lags offense.
The strongest case that it costs more
For AI-enabled bio and cyber threats, attack likely outpaces defense, and defensive technology does nothing about AI that is misaligned. Big spending could buy false security and pull money and attention away from preventing dangerous capabilities in the first place.
The debate
For
- Vitalik Buterin argued for speeding up defensive technology such as far-UV light, air filtration, open-source vaccines and better security, which he calls d/acc, 2023.
- Institute for Progress proposed spending up to $100 million a year on a federal network that sequences samples to spot new pathogens early, 2025.
- Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt and Alexandr Wang argued that slowing the spread of dangerous AI buys time to harden critical infrastructure and stockpile protective gear, 2025.
- Blueprint Biosecurity published a research roadmap for far-UV light that kills airborne pathogens, 2025.
Against
- Liron Shapira argued in a debate with Buterin that defensive technology is wishful thinking against superintelligence, because most powerful technologies favor attackers, 2025.
- The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposed cutting the cybersecurity agency CISA by $495 million and cutting pandemic-preparedness funds, 2025.
Sources
Rough starting points, not precise forecasts. Lead costs assume China doesn't depend on U.S. models, the case least favorable to safety laws, and count 3 years. On the menu you can change every assumption and put in your own numbers. Last priced 2026-09-26.