DiscoverLessWrong (30+ Karma)“Guess I Was Wrong About AIxBio Risks” by J Bostock
“Guess I Was Wrong About AIxBio Risks” by J Bostock

“Guess I Was Wrong About AIxBio Risks” by J Bostock

Update: 2025-09-29
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Description

I was slightly worried about sociohazards of posting this here, but the cat's already out of the bag on this one: the authors of the paper put it up on BioRXiv and got an article written about them in Nature, as well as getting into a bunch of newspapers and all over twitter. I expect that the marginal audience of LessWrong is much more heavily enriched in people who'll use this information to do good than to do evil.

TL;DR:
If anyone reading this works in Biosecurity: nucleotide synthesis companies should start using protein structure annotation as part of their screening protocol for genes, if they aren't already.

Intro

The Fermi Paradox is the question of why we don't see any evidence of aliens spreading out across the galaxy, despite there being loads of planets on which intelligent life could evolve.

The Germy Paradox is the question of [...]

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Outline:

(00:48 ) Intro

(01:23 ) I

(04:34 ) II

(06:52 ) III

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

September 29th, 2025



Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/k5JEA4yFyDzgffqaL/guess-i-was-wrong-about-aixbio-risks


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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.


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Images from the article:

A bacteriophage is a type of virus, specifically one which attacks bacteria.
This appears to be a satirical apology form with checkboxes listing humorous reasons for dismissing AI safety concerns, particularly regarding bioweapons and AI development. The form includes a news article headline about AI-designed viruses, followed by various self-deprecating explanations like

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

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“Guess I Was Wrong About AIxBio Risks” by J Bostock

“Guess I Was Wrong About AIxBio Risks” by J Bostock