For LLMs: For the most part, yes. However, an agentic loop, a sufficient knowledge base about chemicals & reactions, and some simulation tools to help judge, can come up with a top 5 promising solutions/approaches, which can then be tested in a lab. Faking what scientists might try themselves, just faster.

Then there are the non-LLM specialty AI models, which are increasingly being developed. Probably developed and trained by a small team of domain experts with the help of a coding agent, and seeded with domain-specific datasets.

The times ARE changing, but I would not expect Little Johnny to be whipping up bioweapons with chatbots anytime soon.

AI doesn’t mean ChatGPT, copilot etc. There are all kinds of models. There are definitely various medical models, I’d imagine there are some kind of protein folding and chemistry models as well.