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Can we actually control viruses? No. 2020 was evidence enough of that. We were comically bad at it. Thankfully, immune systems have co-evolved with viruses for

Can we actually control viruses? No. 2020 was evidence enough of that. We were comically bad at it. Thankfully, immune systems have co-evolved with viruses for millions of years and there's limits to what viruses can do. After all, the most successful viruses don't kill off their hosts (since they would also die off). It quickly became apparent that Covid could mutate quicker than we could possibly keep up with. Like the common cold and the flu, it iterates too quickly to eliminate entirely like smallpox. At any rate, it seems all you need for AI is attention (transformers + processing power). If AI ever becomes a real threat outside of generating believable fake images and videos, it's likely the counter is a diversity of AI models that can compete with the "evil one".

haxiomic 3y ago
It was surprising to me to learn that we can be _a lot_ faster than evolution when it comes to 'improving' viruses. The process is called gain-of-function. It can create mutations that are rare or impossible in nature. Viruses don't select for devastation on their own, they select only for propagation We will no doubt be able to use AI to develop vaccines that isn't the bottleneck, the bottleneck is in testing and distribution (and humans not wanting to get vaccinated). It's a fundamentally asymmetrical situation
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  > Viruses don't select for devastation on their own, they select only for propagation Which was observed in real-time with the 'rona mutating to become more contagious, but less dangerous.