Would there not already be websites that contain that information? How is an llm different, i guess, from some sort of anarchist cookbook thing.
The bigger issue is that they are potentially capable of producing novel formulations capable of producing harm, and guiding someone through this process. That is, consider a world in which someone with malicious desires has access to a model as capable at chemistry / biology as Mythos is at offensive cybersecurity abilities.
This is obviously limited by the fact that the models don't operate in the physical world, but there's plenty of written material out there.
1. Smart people have economic opportunities that align them away from being evil
2. People who are evil tend not to be smart.
We're breaking both of these assumptions.
For some definition of evil, some of the time, ok. But as economic opportunities compound (looking at the behavior of the ultra-rich), it seems there's at least strong correlation in the other direction, if not full-on "root of all evil" causation.
So much infrastructure is very soft because the evil people aren’t smart enough to conceive of or conduct an attack.
Is Russia currently capitalist, or non-capitalist? Which is Myanmar?
Anyway, personally I think it's the wrong axis; while capitalism and democracy and free press are often correlated, I think that the latter two are the important ones for actually choosing the lesser evils, though capitalism does generate more options to choose between.
for now
On top of LLMs reducing the cost/difficulty, the other reason biological and chemical weapons are such a worry is their asymmetric character — they are much much easier and cheaper to produce and deploy than they are to defend against.