The year is 2124. Humans have merged with AI. ASI is achieved. War and hunger were eliminated. The Riemann Hypothesis was proved.
Biology was solved.
Can there still be viruses? This seems to be a super adversarial environment for them. I see two possibilities:
- Viruses are killed as soon as they emerge, so practically they don't exist.
- They evolved to be highly intelligent, comparable to ASI. But they run on DNA.
The latter seems highly unlikely, but not impossible? Imagine a fragment of code that can morph itself intelligently to stay alive.
Second, many of them are "bacteriophages", that is, they prey on bacteria, including bacteria that can make us sick. So, by 2124 we may understand which viruses are beneficial, similar to how we are beginning to understand which bacteria are beneficial (hence "probiotic" food).
Third, by 2124 we might be able to design viruses to achieve a given affect, either on ourselves or on an enemy.
Fourth, some viruses survive by inserting themselves into the host DNA, normally remaining there as non-coding DNA but some of them able to reactivate in certain circumstances. This means viruses might be harder to eliminate, but also that they might be used as a means of improving our DNA in some way.
Just a few thoughts; I am not a geneticist.