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by ShredKazoo 1205 days ago
>I don't think it's impossible to come up with arguments against them. For one thing, extrapolating the current gradual rate of progress forwards means that we will get to see several minor "intelligence spills" before the hypothetical big and last one, and by observing what went wrong, humanity will have the opportunity to come up with solutions.

This has been discussed under "warning shots" https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/idipkijjz5PoxAwju/warning-sh...
1 comments
whatshisface 1205 days ago
That blog post makes some giant unsupported assumptions, like that the reason for the failure of a few activists to stop gain-of-function research was that the government is fundamentally bad at addressing risks, and not that biologists might know more about the risk/benefit tradeoff than amateurs.
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ShredKazoo 1205 days ago
Was there even a serious policy discussion of banning gain-of-function research?

Gain of function research is supposed to help with pandemics, right? Did it help with COVID?

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whatshisface 1205 days ago
I don't think I know enough to evaluate the case around gain of function research, all I know is that the blog post didn't make any effort to.
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fidgewidge 1204 days ago
GoF research was banned in the USA for long periods, that's why Fauci was outsourcing it to China and why DARPA refused to find that project.

No, not only has GoF not helped with COVID and probably caused it, but that's also true of the entire field of virology.

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