Glad you're looking at this, Abi. This always seemed to be a strange fear for people to be constantly mentioning. It presupposes that the pre-AI bottleneck for mass bioweapon deployment was the molecular design, which just never passed the smell test.
Thanks for this extremely thoughtful response! I'll jump in with a quick reply because Abi is mostly offline for the next few days, and then I'll let Abi respond in detail.
The key idea that emerged from Abi's research is that there are bottlenecks which do *not* seem likely to be significantly eased, at least in the near term, by current developments. (You cite some of the most important, such as cloud labs and DNA synthesis providers.) Abi based this work on discussions with multiple people from the AI / biosecurity community (some of whom are named in the acknowledgement at the end of the post), including feedback on the final draft before publication. The next couple of installments will go into more detail regarding those bottlenecks, and we'd love further feedback.
You also mention the emergence of contract research organizations (labs-for-hire). This isn't a topic I know much about, and I am not certain whether it came up in discussions, so I'll have to wait for Abi here. I'll also defer to Abi to comment on precisely how her findings relate to the Virology Capabilities Test results; I know this was on her radar, and again the upcoming installments will shed more light here.
Thanks Steve! Really appreciate the engagement, and I want to reemphasize that Abi's project is genuinely a valuable contribution; the practitioner perspective has been missing from this conversation, and I'm glad she's been doing interviews and discussions with people in the field!
I'm interested to see the next installments get concrete on specific bottlenecks that remain, but I think my concern might be less about any single development and more about compound effects of being able to route around *any* of the bottlenecks that used to serve as barriers to bioweapons development.
Also glad CROs are on the radar. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
Glad you're looking at this, Abi. This always seemed to be a strange fear for people to be constantly mentioning. It presupposes that the pre-AI bottleneck for mass bioweapon deployment was the molecular design, which just never passed the smell test.
Thanks Vince!
Hi! Your framing around cost-benefit logic in weapon selection was the part I found myself pushing back on most, and I wrote up some counterarguments here: https://thecounterfactual.substack.com/p/contra-abi-olvera-on-ai-biosecurity
Would be curious for your takes / response!
Thanks for this extremely thoughtful response! I'll jump in with a quick reply because Abi is mostly offline for the next few days, and then I'll let Abi respond in detail.
The key idea that emerged from Abi's research is that there are bottlenecks which do *not* seem likely to be significantly eased, at least in the near term, by current developments. (You cite some of the most important, such as cloud labs and DNA synthesis providers.) Abi based this work on discussions with multiple people from the AI / biosecurity community (some of whom are named in the acknowledgement at the end of the post), including feedback on the final draft before publication. The next couple of installments will go into more detail regarding those bottlenecks, and we'd love further feedback.
You also mention the emergence of contract research organizations (labs-for-hire). This isn't a topic I know much about, and I am not certain whether it came up in discussions, so I'll have to wait for Abi here. I'll also defer to Abi to comment on precisely how her findings relate to the Virology Capabilities Test results; I know this was on her radar, and again the upcoming installments will shed more light here.
Thanks again!
Thanks Steve! Really appreciate the engagement, and I want to reemphasize that Abi's project is genuinely a valuable contribution; the practitioner perspective has been missing from this conversation, and I'm glad she's been doing interviews and discussions with people in the field!
I'm interested to see the next installments get concrete on specific bottlenecks that remain, but I think my concern might be less about any single development and more about compound effects of being able to route around *any* of the bottlenecks that used to serve as barriers to bioweapons development.
Also glad CROs are on the radar. Looking forward to the rest of the series!
[note: cross-posted]
Looks like the same topic (broadly) as this, if anybody is interested in a more biology-centric view: https://www.owlposting.com/p/reasons-to-be-pessimistic-and-optimistic
(no connection to the author, just a reader)