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Can Chatbots Help You Build a Bioweapon?
- gus_massa 3y ago> They argue that chatbots could provide users with step-by-step instructions to genetically engineer and produce pathogens, such as viruses or bacteria. > Consider the fact that high school biology students, congressional staffers, and middle-school summer campers already have hands-on experience genetically engineering bacteria. I clicked the link in "sumercamp". One of the activities is > genetically engineer bacteria cells with firefly genes; The difficult part is creating the vector to tranfer the firefly genes. I guess it's possible to misuse the same easy equipemt to tranfer firefly genes to plants or other animal, but to tranfer elephant genes to bacterias you need a more advanced lab. If this were sofware, this would be script kiddies level. It's a very interesting project for a summer camp, but it's ridiculous to pretend it's useful for terrorist.
- cheaprentalyeti 3y agoOn the other hand there’s stuff that’s very dangerous that’s already “at large” and represents the hard part of making a bio weapon: humanized mice.
- jruohonen 3y agoI think these alarmist takes are unhelpful insofar as the attempt is to do something about the risks.