Quite. This road seems a much bigger existential risk than any AI holocaust scenario I can imagine. It's very scary stuff and everyone in the field seems to be

Quite. This road seems a much bigger existential risk than any AI holocaust scenario I can imagine. It's very scary stuff and everyone in the field seems to be brimming with glee at how easy it all is. Just consider that the very mundane HeLa cell line alone managed to jump continents and invade the most stringent safety precautions at dozens of labs. At least they are pretty benign. Now imagine a nice mosquito delivery vehicle with payload strapped on that nobody has a real clue what it is capable of. I shudder to think. A lot of people talking about how to re-establish the baseline and that it's not a big deal and nobody should worry. I get that there are very many wonderful things that can come from this as well, but on the other hand the research is going very fast and this is one area we should be exercising extreme caution.