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Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SCtkSz4nQ9icLZ4uq/watch-ai-materials-science-and-bioscience-abilities-closely
15•joozio•1h ago

Comments

einpoklum•44m ago
Not only do we have to live with endless LLM slop now, it seems we also need to accept an endless sequence of 2-cent philosophical blog posts where people describe the "world with AI" based on two minutes of meandering thought.
A_D_E_P_T•39m ago
Hah, well, you must have never encountered LessWrong before. It has been like that for well over a decade, in fact it's probably approaching its second decade...

One thing you've got to give them credit for is that they've been talking about AI -- about the present moment, really -- from the beginning. Nick Bostrom, who wrote "Superintelligence" about ten years ago, has always been in their orbit.

Chance-Device•23m ago
He’s right though, this post says nothing non-obvious. It boils down to “AIs that can do some difficult things might be able to do other difficult things. Also: Danger!”.

There isn’t enough here for it to be interesting.

Avicebron•37m ago
Well with each new thing we get the grifters, lesswrong is an AI grifter hangout.
bglazer•18m ago
Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count.

I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. All of these interact and define a design space that nature has been searching for at unimaginable scale for as long as humans have existed. And yet here we are! Seems like “wiping humanity” might be really hard, perhaps impossible for a virus.

Perhaps I’m being uncharitable or insufficiently creative, but these people strike me as deeply unserious in their engagement with the actually real physical world of biology.

EDIT: Also, in this world, couldn’t an AI just “one shot” a vaccine and an effective treatment?

reedf1•11m ago
yes - I don't want to publicize what I know. I worked briefly at a leading university bio lab. It's haunted me for awhile that it would only take 1 disgruntled postdoc to wipe out humanity. Ablated models are handing that info to anyone who asks.
bglazer•8m ago
I currently work in a chemical biology lab and I don’t think one disgruntled postdoc could wipe out humanity.

Also disgruntled is more or less unnecessary when combined with postdoc. Sort of goes without saying.

reedf1•4m ago
then ask an abliterated qwen 3.8

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Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

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