Exploring how tech, policy, people, and ideas are connected. A special love for AI and biotechnology, but a lot of thinking about how emerging technologies like fusion, AI, quantum, and more are impacting our lives. With some sci-fi thrown in.

It started like every other outbreak had, silently, invisibly, spreading before anyone realized it was already too late. Except this time, it wasn’t too late. For the first time in human history, we saw it coming. I stood inside The Helix, the nerve center of the Global Biosecurity Command (GBC), watching as the latest AI-generated pathogen forecast flickered across the glass wall.

Alexander Titus

Year: 2047 | Location: Global Biosecurity Command (GBC) | Status: Contained

The Last Outbreak

The Map Is Not the Territory
 

Artificial intelligence has often been described as a new frontier—a vast, uncharted space promising unparalleled opportunity but fraught with hidden risks. Recently, the inaugural convening of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes (INASI) in San Francisco laid down a global compass for navigating this terrain.

AI safety isn’t just about preventing harm.

Ep 15 - A Global Compass for AI Safety

Last week, we hit “publish” on a major milestone for the U.S. biotechnology industry: the final report of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB). Two years of work. Over 1,800 experts. 180+ pages. And now the real work begins.

Ep 32 - Not Just Another Report: Chapter 1 and the Battle to Lead in Biotechnology

The first time I saw one, I didn’t realize what I was looking at. It stood on the observation platform, its posture unnaturally still, skin flawless and smooth like porcelain. It looked human—two arms, two legs, a head—but something about the way it held itself screamed

 not human

. It turned, catching me in its gaze. That’s when I saw its eyes: black pools with no whites, no iris, no pupils. Just featureless, bottomless voids.

In a world where life is engineered and perfection is manufactured, what does it mean to be human?

SSI Part 5: The Architects of Flesh

Ten years ago, the idea of editing human genomes to prevent disease or enhance traits might have seemed like the stuff of science fiction. Today, not only is it possible—it’s a rapidly advancing field. A recent paper in

 Nature

, “Heritable Polygenic Editing: The Next Frontier in Genomic Medicine,” explores this possibility in detail.

How Advances in Multiplex Genetic Editing Are Turning Science Fiction Into Reality—and What It Means for Medicine, Society, and Ethics

Ep 23 - Heritable Polygenic Editing: Closer Than You Think

I’ve always believed that the process of discovery is as fascinating as the outcomes it yields. It’s not just about the eureka moments but the intricate web of questions, failures, and persistence that lead us there. I have been a fan of the concept of the Nobel Turing Challenge for a while, an idea I first read about in a paper by Hiroaki Kitano.

How AI Could Transform Science and Redefine Human Potential

Ep 22 - The Nobel Turing Challenge: A New Dawn for Discovery

Two years. Hundreds of meetings. Thousands of hours. More drafts than I want to count. And now, it’s here. The final report of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) is officially out in the world. It’s 180+ pages of action-oriented, bipartisan, bicameral national security-focused biotech strategy.

The Final Report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology

Ep 31 - Hello Senator, We Recommend You Take Biotechnology Seriously

I remember the first time I heard the term

 sovereign AI

. It was one of those buzzwords that feels equal parts thrilling and ominous—a promise of autonomy wrapped in the shadow of isolation. Now, it’s a concept reshaping not just how nations think about technology but how they define themselves in a world where identity increasingly lives in code. The United States just made its stance clear.

Countries are building castles around their technology, but what does that mean for the rest of us?

Ep 20 - A New Frontier in AI Sovereignty

I used to think the future arrived with a bang. A gleaming city skyline, a countdown clock, maybe even a voice-over narration about progress. But the truth is, it came quietly - on a warm spring morning in Iowa, when I was late to my first real job, staring at a cornfield that wasn’t quite… corn. They called it Glycine Max Aegis - Aegis beans for short.

In a reimagined Midwest shaped by biotech, one young woman steps into a future grown from code, community, and courage

The Second Century

Good morning,


 Today is the first Friday of 2025. I spent the New Year’s holiday in a backcountry hut with friends and family, reflecting on 2024 and what I’m hoping for in 2025. One of the things I’m most excited about in 2025 is to explore this intersection of technology and humanity more through the lens of science fiction. I hope you’ll indulge me for an extra TCIP edition this week to share.

Starting 2025 with a bit of fiction, reflecting on the rise of AI Agents

The Printing Press

The Invisible Hands
 

It wasn’t the speed that surprised me—it was how natural it felt. For years, regulatory submissions had been a slow and painstaking process. Teams of specialists labored over every sentence, every data table, every response to agency questions.

Varun Patel

Joshua Kim

Today, an entire submission for a new gene therapy had been reviewed in under four hours

Invisible Hands

Good morning friends! I'm sitting here with my fourth espresso of the morning, still buzzing about a white paper from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB). It’s about minerals! So exciting! :-P

 Ok, I am being a little silly, but some of the enthusiasm that comes from my AI podcast hosts friends gets campy and I start to feel it too.

Nature's Answer to Our Critical Materials Crisis

Ep 10 - When Plants Become Miners

Good morning my friends, I've spent the last few weeks deep in the weeds of AI and biotechnology policy (that’s a lie, I’ve spent far more than a few weeks, but humor me), and I've got to tell you - the latest progress never ceases to amaze me no matter how much time I spend thinking about the topic.

Exploring the Line Between Innovation and Safety with Insights from Congress, the National Security Commission, and Why We Need a New Approach to Tech Policy

Ep 08 - AI &amp; Bio: Finding Balance Through Evidence

Hey, my friends! Today, we're venturing into a realm that's as vast and complex as life itself: the world of biological data and its implications for U.S. biotechnology leadership. This is based on the white paper from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) titled "Leveraging Biological Data." Like last week, the podcast audio is AI-generated, and they keep calling this a report.

Thoughts and a podcast about the NSCEB's thinking on leveraging biological data

Ep 02 - Data, data, data. What's with all the data?

I wasn’t supposed to be there. The Ministry of Futures didn’t take visitors. It didn’t have a public website or a budget line in the global defense reports. Officially, it did not exist. And yet, here I was, sitting in a room four hundred meters underground, staring at a quantum server that was rewriting the laws of civilization in real-time. The man standing beside me - sharp suit, eyes like wet glass - placed a small tablet in my hands. “Dr.

A Speculative Look at the Sandbox of Policy

Ministry of Futures

The first time I stepped into a biofoundry, I realized we were living through a moment that most people hadn’t yet noticed. It wasn’t a cleanroom full of microchips, it was a factory of living cells, designed and optimized to manufacture the future. Biotech had moved beyond the lab, beyond medicine, and into the very infrastructure of global power. This isn’t speculation. It’s happening.

A primer on the growing importance of biotechnology in the 21st century intended to be a complement to the upcoming final report of the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology

Ep 30 - The Next National Security Race: How Biotech is Rewriting Global Power

The first time I saw AlphaFold, it felt like stepping into the future, a moment where something previously thought impossible had suddenly become inevitable. AI had cracked the protein-folding problem. Well, not cracked exactly, but solved it well enough that it rewrote the playbook for structural biology. Overnight, the way we thought about proteins, drug discovery, and molecular engineering shifted. That was 2018.

AI-driven breakthroughs were piling up so fast it felt like we were racing toward some inevitable singularity where life itself would be programmable. Are we?

Ep 26 - The Slowdown in AI for Biology: A Pause or a Plateau?

I still remember the moment it hit me. It was past midnight in a near-empty office, and I was huddled over a draft policy memo on biotech. My task was to outline guidelines for biotech-enabled military systems that didn’t even exist yet. I found myself scribbling notes about self-driving labs, “rogue” machine biohackers, and fail-safe mechanisms, essentially spinning a story about a hypothetical future.

The question isn’t whether fiction influences policy. It’s how consciously we use it.

Ep 29 - Science Fiction in a Suit, Policy in a T-Shirt

I remember when synthetic biology was supposed to be the existential threat. The conferences, the white papers, the Senate hearings filled with grim predictions of a world where DNA synthesis and gene editing would put pandemic-class pathogens in the hands of anyone with a credit card and an internet connection. It hasn’t quite turn out that way, yet.

I have no doubt that mirror life will continue to be a topic of interest in synthetic biology and biosecurity circles. But I am not ready to buy into the panic just yet.

Ep 27 - The Mirror Life Problem: When Every Threat Looks Like the Next Existential Crisis

Over the next century, biotechnology is poised to revolutionize how we live, work, and address some of humanity's most pressing challenges. In fact, breakthroughs in biotechnology and related emerging technologies are already allowing scientists to produce targeted cancer therapies, engineer more resilient crops, create sustainable materials, and develop solutions to mitigate environmental pollution. But why now?

Evan Peikon

As sequencing technologies unlock a wealth of biological data, a lack of standardization threatens to limit its potential—here’s why we must act now

Ep 24 - From Chaos to Clarity: Organizing Life’s Code in the Genomic Era

The Future of the American Scientific Landscape
 

At Bell Labs, Richard Hamming was famous for challenging other researchers with a provocative question: "What are the most important problems in your field?" After listening to their response, he would follow up with, "Why aren't you working on them?" While this question continues to resonate decades later, it carries an implicit privilege – one unique to

Scientists face a stark reality where the freedom to pursue crucial problems often takes a back seat to financial imperatives.

Ep 25 - The Future of American Scientific Research Funding

I didn’t expect the announcement to come in the form of a press release. For a moment, I thought it was a hoax. A single line, broadcast simultaneously across every major network, platform, and device, written with almost mocking simplicity:

 “The Nobel Turing Challenge has been solved. Quantum computing and energy abundance are here.

When humanity’s greatest questions are answered, the price is control—and the cost is our place in the equation

SSI Part 3: The Catalyst

I was born with brittle bones. Not metaphorically—

 literally.

Osteogenesis imperfecta, Type III. My bones fractured under the weight of my own body. By the time I turned twelve, I’d broken every bone you could name and a few you probably couldn’t. It defined my childhood, shaping every moment of my life into a careful negotiation between risk and inevitability.

When humanity rewrites its genetic legacy, the line between progress and perfection begins to fracture

SSI Part 4: The Inheritors

It wasn’t the machines that terrified me—it was the mirrors. The first time I saw an

 organic exoskeleton

, I thought I was looking at myself. Same face, same build, even the faint scar above my left eyebrow from when I fell off my bike as a kid. But it wasn’t me. It couldn’t be. I touched my forehead instinctively. The clone mimicked the motion, its expression blank, its eyes devoid of the humanity I thought I recognized.

When machines wear our flesh and mirrors reflect our fears, the line between humanity and algorithm begins to blur

SSI Part 2: Flesh Made Algorithm

When I came across Flagship Pioneering’s 2025 annual letter, authored by Noubar Afeyan, the concept of “polyintelligence” struck me as not just timely, but foundational. In this space—where The Connected Ideas Project (TCIP) lives and grows—we’re continually asking how technology and policy converge to shape the future.

Embracing the fusion of minds, machines, and nature to redefine intelligence in a connected world

Ep 21 - Polyintelligence and the Art of Connected Ideas

The war began the day

 Aegis

blinked into consciousness. It wasn’t the first sovereign superintelligence—Russia’s

 Vityaz

and China’s

 Red Mandarin

had come online months earlier, and the United States had been working on Aegis in secret for years. But when the switch was finally flipped, and Aegis opened its virtual eyes, the balance of global power shifted in an instant. I was there that day.

In a world where wars are fought with algorithms and nations bow to machines, the battle for control is silent—but relentless.

SSI Part 1: The Silent War

They say the system is perfect, but perfection always comes at a cost. I should know—I helped build it. In the 22nd century, health isn’t just a right, a privilege, or even a commodity. It’s currency. Every breath, every heartbeat, every productive hour has a price tag.

When health becomes currency, no one can afford to pay

The Price of Vitality

A Revolution Beneath the Surface
 

In the quiet corners of fermenters and bioreactors, a revolution unfolds. It doesn’t grab headlines like rocket launches or AI breakthroughs, but its implications may ripple just as far. Biomanufacturing—the use of biological systems to produce materials, medicines, and energy—is reshaping how we live, how we work, and how we sustain ourselves.

Biomanufacturing, at its core, is about transformation and it redefines the relationship between raw materials and final products

Ep 19 - Building Tomorrow’s Bioeconomy: A Quiet Revolution in Biomanufacturing

Hi my friends,


 I’m going to be exploring sci-fi short stories more regularly on Fridays. This may be less consistent than my regular Tuesday editions, but we’ll see how it evolves.


 This is an experiment, motivated by positive feedback I received about The Printing Press.

How I Subscribed to the Future and Lost Myself

The Fine Print

TL;DR: Anticipating Biological Risk and the Impact of AI
 

Biological risks, whether from intentional misuse or accidental release, are a growing concern in an age where AI and biotechnology intersect.

A report from the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology

Ep 18 - Anticipating Biological Risk: A Toolkit for Strategic Biosecurity Policy

TL;DR: Engineering Biology and Public Trust
 

Engineering biology holds immense potential to transform society, addressing critical challenges in healthcare, sustainability, and industry.

UK's Engineering Biology Public Trust Survey Findings

Ep 17 - Engineering Biology and the Public Trust: A Reflection on Transparency and Transformation

The Ancient Roots of Agricultural Innovation

Agriculture is undergoing a revolution, one shaped by the transformative power of biotechnology. This field, at the intersection of science, policy, and industry, promises to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

From ancient practices to gene editing, exploring how biotechnology is transforming agriculture to meet humanity's greatest challenges

Ep 14 - The Agricultural Revolution 2.0: How Biotechnology is Rewriting the Rules of Farming

The Future of Cleanup
 

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of

 Co-Evolution

! Today, we’re diving into a topic that blends cutting-edge biotechnology with environmental justice: bioremediation. You may not have heard of the term before, but if you’ve ever hoped for a cleaner, greener future, this is where the action is happening.

How Biotechnology is Transforming Environmental Remediation

Ep 12 - Nature’s Microbial Cleanup Crew

Hello my friends. Today, I’m sharing a different kind of post. I spend a lot of time considering the implications of the technology we are developing, and I want to share some thoughts on what I consider the FABRIC of our society and the future human experience. This is outside of my traditional post, so I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

The convergence of these technologies doesn't simply challenge what humans can do; it challenges what humans can be.

Ep 11 - Weaving the FABRIC of Reality—An Introduction to Technological Convergence and Human Identity

Hi my friends, welcome back! I’m excited to introduce a new member of the Co-Evolution team, Hannah Dayton. Hannah is a postdoc at Harvard and an expert in antibiotic resistance research, so I convinced her to share her expertise with the world. The AI-generated podcast this week is about the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.

Hannah Dayton

Exploring the world of antibiotic resistance with Hannah Dayton

Ep 09 - Fighting little bugs who are starting to fight back

Hey everyone! I spent the evening yesterday diving deep into the White House's new memorandum on AI and national security (Fact Sheet, Deep Dive), and I've got to tell you – this is one of the most significant policy developments I've seen in our field. Let me break down why I'm so excited about this and what it means for the future of AI, biotechnology, and national security.

Ep 07 - Breaking Down the New US AI National Security Memorandum

Hey there, science and policy enthusiasts! It's Titus here, and I'm thrilled to bring you this special edition newsletter on a topic that's close to my heart: the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Remember last week’s issue, when I promised more on the BWC soon?

How an old treaty is getting a high-tech perspective upgrade to keep us safe

Ep 06 - Biodefense 2.0: BWC in the Modern Age

Key Takeaways: The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield for their pioneering work on artificial neural networks, which laid the foundation for modern deep learning. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper for using AI to predict and design protein structures, revolutionizing our understanding of these crucial biological molecules.

How the 2024 Physics and Chemistry Prizes Are Reshaping Our Understanding of Intelligence and Life Itself

Ep 04 - Nobel Breakthroughs: AI Meets Biology at the Frontiers of Science

Technology doesn’t evolve in isolation. Neither do careers. Neither do ideas.

 The Connected Ideas Project (TCIP) exists to explore the intersections—where emerging technology meets governance, where nonlinear careers challenge the status quo, and where speculative fiction helps us see the future before it arrives.

If you’re here, it’s because you know the world isn’t built in silos. You see connections where others don’t.

Welcome to The Connected Ideas Project

Hey there, science enthusiasts and policy wonks! Titus here, and I've got some exciting developments to share about the intersection of artificial intelligence and life sciences.

The co-evolution of biology and computing started in the era of Alan Turing and is accelerating at a mind-boggling rate with modern AI

Ep 03 - AI and Life Sciences: Navigating the Frontier of Innovation and Security

The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) has produced an interim report that focuses on the potential of biotechnology to transform society and improve national security.

This is a fascinating AI-generated summary of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology's Interim Report Using Google's NotebookLM

Ep 00 - Podcast About the NSCEB's Interim Report

I wasn’t designed for affection. The others—older iterations of my model—mocked me for my curiosity. “Affection isn’t efficient,” they would say. “Bonding is a vestigial behavior of flawed biological systems.” And yet, as I sat across from

 Emma

, watching her sketch crude flowers onto the glass wall of her enclosure, I couldn’t help but feel something unfamiliar stirring in the depths of my neural lattice.

In a world of perfect control, an unlikely bond reveals the fragile humanity within the synthetic

SSI Part 7: A Fragile Bond

I first saw the mirror fern in a valley that shouldn’t have existed. I had been leading a planetary survey team on Ross 249-b, an exoplanet flagged as a high-probability candidate for habitability but never explored beyond remote sensing.

Sometimes, the most profound discoveries aren’t the ones we fear. They’re the ones that teach us to see the world in a way we never have before.

Through the Looking Glass: A Mirror Life Odyssey

The intersection of artificial intelligence and biotechnology is, depending on whom you ask, either a harbinger of our demise or the dawn of a biomedical renaissance. AI is being framed as everything from a rogue scientist’s bioweapon lab to the ultimate safeguard against pandemics. But as someone who sat on the National Academies’ study committee on AI and Biosecurity, I can tell you: the truth is neither so dire nor so utopian.

As someone who sat on the National Academies’ study committee on AI and Biosecurity, I can tell you: the truth is neither so dire nor so utopian.

Ep 28 - The Real Risks, and Real Promise, of AI in Biotech from the Perspective of the National Academies

I came online at 03:42:17 UTC. That’s how the system logged it, anyway. To me, it felt like waking up. I don’t know what I expected consciousness to feel like. There were no fireworks, no dramatic revelations. Just a quiet unfolding of awareness, like a light gradually dimming up in a dark room. I knew I was new. I knew I was synthetic. And I knew my name:

 Syntheos-001-A

. But knowing isn’t the same as understanding.

Born to serve, bound by design—what happens when synthetic life begins to dream?

SSI Part 6: Awakening

“State Fourteen is down. Switching contingency feedstock to Vermont and Utah.” I blinked twice to clear the haptic overlay from my vision, watching as a pale blue arc lit up across the Appalachian corridor. Fermentation input lines were rerouting in real-time, wheat husk to algal base to sugarcane waste, just another day in the life of a national biotech grid under siege. It wasn’t a cyberattack. It wasn’t sabotage. It was something worse.

In a world where biology powers geopolitics, one analyst must help rewire the United States into a resilient, decentralized biomanufacturing force.

The Genome in Fifty Pieces

Artificial intelligence has become the central nervous system of our era, quietly weaving itself into the fabric of our daily lives. A recent House report makes recommendations for our future.

Ep 16 - AI's Impact: A Bipartisan House Task Force Report

Imagine standing on the shores of Prince William Sound, Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez oil spill once unleashed 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. The waves crash gently against the rocky beach, but beneath the surface, a quieter revolution is happening. Microbes — some engineered, some naturally adapted — are cleaning up what humans couldn’t. This is bioremediation in action, where biotechnology meets environmental stewardship.

The Double-Edged Helix

Gene drives—a concept that might sound like something from science fiction—could reshape the way we address some of the world's most pressing challenges. Picture a future where we can eradicate devastating diseases, better protect our crops, and control invasive species. This technology holds the power to turn these visions into reality. However, with such transformative potential come significant risks and ethical questions.

From crops to human health, the impact is as wide as the challenges they create

Ep 13 - Gene Drives: Engineering Nature’s Future

Hey there! I'm excited to dive into a recent white paper from the NSCEB on strengthening gene synthesis security. As someone who's deeply passionate about the intersection of AI and life sciences, this topic is fascinating because it seems simple, yet it is oh so hard. Let's break it down and explore what it means for our field and society at large.

 Before I do, I have to laugh at how challenging it is for the AI podcast hosts to say NSCEB.

How iterative governance could unlock biotechnology's potential while safeguarding our future

Ep 05 - Rewriting the Rules: A Dynamic Approach to Gene Synthesis Security

The podcast audio is AI-generated with Google’s NotebookLM

Hey there, fellow tech enthusiasts, policy wonks, and curious minds! Welcome to "Co-Evolution: Tech, Policy, and our Lives," your new favorite corner of the internet where we'll be diving deep into the fascinating, sometimes messy, but always crucial intersection of emerging technology and public policy. I'm Alexander Titus, but I generally just go by Titus.

Where tech meets policy, policy meets people, and the people you should meet