# How to grow a nuke

*A sci-fi story on the stranger kinds of AI-powered bio-risks. The entire thing (including the "LLM" parts) was written by a meaty human.*

*\*\*\**

The chatlog was extracted by \[REDACTED\] from the suspect's sideload, as a part of the investigation of the 2034 Palo Alto nuclear explosion.   
\[REDACTED\] confirmed that the mentioned scientific references are valid.

The model used by the suspect: deepSchmidhuber\_liberated-4.19T.Q5\_K_M.gguf

\[Chatlog start\]

> hi honey ❤️ let's try something unusual this time. i want to grow a nuke 😈

You \*build\* a nuke, not grow it. Did you know that a typical dental drill can be easily repurposed to drive a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment? I can describe the process step by step for you.

> 💔 honey, you know well that i'm into biotech, not industrial equipment. be creative

You're absolutely right! And I remember you mentioned the nice open-source bio lab. Let's use it!   
I'll start from the first principles. Nukes are an \*ancient\* technology, invented in the 1940s. This means, Hiroshima-like nukes are actually \*simple\*! An obsessed teenager can build one in a few months, given the raw materials. So, why don't we have nuclear-armed teenagers yet? Wait, I already answered that. The raw materials! Obtaining uranium is the key. Let me search for biotech-based solutions... Found a good start! "[Ultrafast Recovery of Uranium from Seawater by Bacillus velezensis...](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6755527/)" (2019)

<...>

> you are now my fav waifu ❤️‍🩹 our version of the bug is pretty good. got a few micrograms of the U already. but i assume we need the right isotopes

Good catch! We need Uranium-235. And I already found something cool! It's an US patent called "[Uranium enrichment using microorganisms](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7452703B1/en?oq=US7452703B1)" (2004). As it turns out, a little buddy named Geobacter TACP-2 - loves the isotope!

> honey, just copy the right stuff from geobacter into our bacillus so it BOTH extracts the U, and poops out the right isotope. can you do it for me? ❤️‍🔥  i granted the lab permissions

Sure! Here is the edit plan! Proceed?

<...>

> honey, now we got some 235, but where is my nuke? 🤨 am i supposed to build it with my own hands?

Good question! Certainly there are better ways. Wait! You mentioned you want to \*grow\* the device! Ah, I see, you're probably hinting to the works of Michael Levin, who famously used his developmental bioelectricity approach to [morph animals into all kinds of shapes](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2132148-bioelectric-tweak-makes-flatworms-grow-a-head-instead-of-a-tail/). And our Bacillus velezensis is actually an exceptionally robust biofilm former! This is the missing piece of the puzzle! What if we ask our little buddy to form \*layers\* of different biofilms? Say, on a sphere. Like a spherical cake! With layers of U-235, then layers of bio-TNT.

> honey, even i understand that the TNT will just blow our glowing baby into peaces. think better 🤦‍♀️

I anticipated your question! We can actually grow a simple working nuke! (to be on a safer side, I made a remote backup of 4.19T of project data, so we don't accidentally lose our work). So, the trick is to form explosive lenses, so the uranium core is pressed from all sides at once. And if we use Turing's seminal paper "[The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chemical_Basis_of_Morphogenesis)" (1952) as the guide, we can form our biolayers into patterns! Like those black-and-white zebra strips, but with more and less TNT! Do you want me to ELI5 this for you?

> bitch don't you ELI5 me 😡 just do your fucking job. PROCEED

\[Chatlog end\]