A few things here immediately reminded me of an article I recently read about how, regardless of whether or not SARS-CoV-2 was "created" in a lab, the knowledge

A few things here immediately reminded me of an article I recently read about how, regardless of whether or not SARS-CoV-2 was "created" in a lab, the knowledge and tools for such genetic engineering have reached the point where it would have been no great feat to do so. > Progress is driven by peak knowledge, not average knowledge. The cutting-edge researchers are already building on their work from two years ago, and in many cases that work has not even been fully digested by other leading figures in the field, much less industry commentators or science journalists. Anyone who is moving the needle of peak knowledge in modern applied sciences is by definition an outlier, and it will take everyone else a while to figure out what they actually accomplished. > The future uses different tools, and can therefore easily do things that are very hard now, or do with difficulty things that are impossible now. The second point seems extremely salient for genetic engineering. From what I have read, processes that required the full resources and expertise of a cutting-edge lab 10 years ago can now be performed by grad student technicians in a few hours with kits manufactured by biotech startups.