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This is such a goofy comment. In your mind, there's no difference between the precautions a BSL-4 virology lab should take when working with an unknown pathoge

This is such a goofy comment. In your mind, there's no difference between the precautions a BSL-4 virology lab should take when working with an unknown pathogen and the precautions that literally everyone else in the world should be expected to adhere to? Because, hey, after they deliberately unleash their new unknown virus on the world, we're all going to face that same threat, right?

ben_w 20d ago
You're in a world where, continuing this metaphor, 60 random Chinese companies are making and exporting home virology labs. A world where previously exported home virology labs are actively getting "upgraded" by people eager to share their "jailbreaks" to "un-hobbble" systems designed to stop people doing DNA/RNA printing of human infections. A world where people have spent the entire time since the invention of the tech (including the specific incident under discussion, on this site, under this link!), mocking any and all efforts to secure the systems as "PR" "hype" to boost sales or the IPO, as if "we're dangerous please regulate us" is good for sales. A world where the tech is just now at a point where it's cost-effective to make a custom virus to attack specific individuals, rather than slowly, expensively, and approximately, assembling something mainly useful for lab research. If you genuinely, sincerely, think this is like a BSL-4 virology lab, you should be prepping for a disaster. Remember: if it is that bad, no matter how much blame you'd be correct to put on OpenAI, it's not going to stop the next incident from another company, let alone the Cambrian explosion of them that will happen the moment equally capable open weights come out.
- ForHackernews 18d ago
  It must be very freeing for you to absolve everyone of all responsibility because someone, somewhere could be acting irresponsibly. I'm not mocking efforts to secure the system, I'm insulted that they didn't bother taking what I consider bare-minimum precautions of airgapping their new experiment. They claim they are forging new frontiers of computer security but they can't be arsed with security 101.

ben_w 20d ago

You're in a world where, continuing this metaphor, 60 random Chinese companies are making and exporting home virology labs. A world where previously exported home virology labs are actively getting "upgraded" by people eager to share their "jailbreaks" to "un-hobbble" systems designed to stop people doing DNA/RNA printing of human infections. A world where people have spent the entire time since the invention of the tech (including the specific incident under discussion, on this site, under this link!), mocking any and all efforts to secure the systems as "PR" "hype" to boost sales or the IPO, as if "we're dangerous please regulate us" is good for sales. A world where the tech is just now at a point where it's cost-effective to make a custom virus to attack specific individuals, rather than slowly, expensively, and approximately, assembling something mainly useful for lab research. If you genuinely, sincerely, think this is like a BSL-4 virology lab, you should be prepping for a disaster. Remember: if it is that bad, no matter how much blame you'd be correct to put on OpenAI, it's not going to stop the next incident from another company, let alone the Cambrian explosion of them that will happen the moment equally capable open weights come out.

ForHackernews 18d ago
It must be very freeing for you to absolve everyone of all responsibility because someone, somewhere could be acting irresponsibly. I'm not mocking efforts to secure the system, I'm insulted that they didn't bother taking what I consider bare-minimum precautions of airgapping their new experiment. They claim they are forging new frontiers of computer security but they can't be arsed with security 101.