3 ms·
The problem of producing bio weapons is not computational, it's physical in nature. Even if predictions from these tools become 100% accurate and encompassed 10
by tsimionescu 3y ago
The problem of producing bio weapons is not computational, it's physical in nature. Even if predictions from these tools become 100% accurate and encompassed 100% of the chemistry, you still need to actually do the manual steps to breed the bioagents. And, very importantly, you need to do so without getting you and your co-workers deadly ill long before finishing the thing. Which requires extremely sophisticated machinery.
Alternatively, you can go today in some of the poorer corners of the world, find some people with drug resistant tuberculosis, pay them a pittance to give you bodily fluids, and disperse those in a large crowd, say at a concert or similar. You'll get a good chunk of the effects of the worse possible bioterrorism.
- hackernewds 3y agoThese are very specific ideas you have..
- baq 3y agoThese are ideas you should read and think about because intelligence agencies all over the world have been thinking about them for the past hundred years.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y agoIt’s very frustrating when people consider the possession of information equivalent to malice. It suggests that the right way to run society is to keep people stupid and harmless.
- baq 3y agoHarmless is enough. The smart ones will figure out that knowing shortens lives.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoOkay, I'll live in the harmless society, you go live in the harmful society.
- bronco21016 3y agoWe all live in the harmful society already right? I’m not aware of where to find this harmless society. Suffering of finite beings is inevitable. While a very worthwhile goal, creating a harmless civilization isn’t possible. There are some common sense things we should do to prevent harm like negative consequences (prison etc) for needlessly harming each other. However, locking up knowledge doesn’t make much sense to me. I’d rather explore the bounds of this world than mindlessly collect my drip of Soma and live comatose. To me that sounds more harmful.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoI don't care about people harming people incidentally. I also don't want to shut down knowledge. But there is "knowledge" and there are "materials" that everyone agrees must be controlled and limited, like high explosives and bioweapons. Then the question is if large AI weights are a kind of "knowledge" or a kind of "material", and IMO they're much closer to material despite being data. > I’d rather explore the bounds of this world than mindlessly collect my drip of Soma and live comatose. To me that sounds more harmful. This only once again demonstrates that winning a debate is entirely about getting to define the choice under consideration. To me, it's not about Soma, it's about "humanity survives" and "humanity goes extinct due to out-of-control superintelligence." I don't want to die, so I'm for AI regulation.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y agoRemember, I also said stupid. Ima go live in the non-dummy society and you can do whatever.
- DrScientist 3y agoTo be honest, apart from the containment systems you mentioned, much of biology basic research doesn't actually need that much sophisticated kit for basic cloning and genetic manipulation. A lot of the key reagents can just be bought - and BTW it's why code like Screepy exist ( https://edinburgh-genome-foundry.github.io/ https://edinburgh-genome-foundry.github.io/ ),. I think the real thing that stops it - it not that you can't make stuff that kills people, but the problem of specificity - ie how do you stop it killing yourself.