[andy99]

I'm sure they've thought of this but curious how it fared on evaluations for supporting biological threats, ie elevating threat actor capabilities with respect to making biological weapons.

I'm personally sceptical that LLMs can currently do this (and it's based on Claude that does test this) but still interesting to see.

[greazy]

Creating a biological weapon requires a whole bunch of unique and specialised skills, equipment, safety measures (so you don't infect/kill yourself/your people) and even multidisciplinary skill sets. Take for example the Kameido (Japan) incident by the Aum Shinrikyo cult/religious group [1]. Same group which committed the Sarin attack [2].

> The use of an attenuated B. anthracis strain, low spore concentrations, ineffective dispersal, a clogged spray device, and inactivation of the spores by sunlight are all likely contributing factors to the lack of human cases.

Now you may say, that's bacteria, what about viruses? A similar set of problems would arise, how do you successfully grow virus to high titers? Even vaccine companies struggle to do this with certain viruses. Then the issue of dispersal, infectivity and mortality arise (too quick, it kills the host without spreading and authorities will notice, too slow, same problem: authorities will notice). I haven't even mentioned biological engineering which requires years of technical knowledge and laboratory experience combined with a intimate knowledge of the organism you're working with.

What worries me the most is nature springing a new influenza subtype. Our farming practices, especially in developing countries, is bound to breed a new subtype. It happened in 2009 (H1N1pdm) and it is bound to happen again. We got lucky with H1N1pdm.

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3322761/ 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack

[spwa4]

> Creating a biological weapon requires a whole bunch of unique and specialised skills, equipment, safety measures

I just tell some investors our god tells me to do that.

> too quick, it kills the host without spreading and authorities will notice, too slow, same problem: authorities will notice

The current authorities are Trump's authorities and don't believe in vaccines, have said in an interview Covid is either a Jewish or Chinese conspiracy (and "they made themselves immune"), and that the "disease epidemic" needs to end (this last one is easy to misunderstand. Kennedy Jr. doesn't believe any particular disease is an epidemic. Epidemics of that sort don't exist according to him. That people believe they get sick, THAT is the epidemic that must be stopped)