Jim Thomas - ETC Group
This case study is part of a research collaboration between ETC Group and IT for Change and is supported by the Center for Global Digital Justice.
Abstract
This report sheds light on an emergent field: Generative Biology (GenBio), the application of generative AI to redesign genomes, proteins, RNA, and metabolic pathways. GenBio is expanding at extraordinary speed, propelled by Big Tech and venture capital, with pharmaceuticals as its primary market and growing applications across agriculture, materials, and energy. Promoted as a transformative solution for health, food, and climate challenges, its greatest value may lie in serving the AI industry itself—generating data-heavy workloads and reputational benefits—while shifting social, ecological, and economic costs onto society.
The study highlights urgent data justice concerns: renewed bioprospecting to feed AI models, the conversion of biodiversity into proprietary digital assets, erosion of consent and benefit-sharing, and the acceleration of digital biocolonialism. GenBio also threatens to displace livelihoods, erode biocultural rights, strain biosafety regimes, and entrench philanthrocapitalist and military agendas.
Against this backdrop, the report identifies key entry points for civil society engagement, including negotiations under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the FAO Seed Treaty, privacy and data-protection enforcement, and national or regional policy on AI training data. Precaution, human rights, ecological and data justice must guide governance efforts if deeper enclosures of life based on AI and digital technologies are to be resisted.
