Sam Altman, the recently fired (and rehired) chief executive of Open AI, was asked earlier this year by his fellow tech billionaire Patrick Collison what he thought of the risks of synthetic biology. ‘I would like to not have another synthetic pathogen cause a global pandemic. I think we can all agree that wasn’t a great experience,’ he replied. ‘Wasn’t that bad compared to what it could have been, but I’m surprised there has not been more global coordination and I think we should have more of that.’

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I would like to not have another synthetic pathogen cause a global pandemic.

    Gonna ignore the urge to sneer at the tinfoil hattery here. See the rest of this comment section for that.

    I think we can all agree that wasn’t a great experience

    Sam, you have a doomsday bunker and a bunch of cash. This was one of your dream scenarios. Don’t pretend like you’re one of us.