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Comment by mark_something | Hacker News Reader

That law is not based on thorough data. Even a person with a sky high IQ can't destroy the world easily. You need access to stuff that is not easy to get. My guess is that developing a new lethal virus or bacteria that is very infectious, is the easiest way, but even that requires a lot of high tech out of reach of most people. Or hacking into systems that control nuclear missiles, but I think these have "air gaps".

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You can't design an infectious pathogen without testing it.

It's got all the same problems as the concept of a dirty bomb did, only worse (dirty bombs aren't practical because handling highly radioactive materials en masse is both highly visible and will kill anyone trying to do it without the money and facilities).

If the goal is just destruction then letting it free in random public places is not that hard. Especially in countries where wearing a mask is not frowned upon.

It (hopefully) might not be that easy. The world of bacteria and viruses is a complicated war zone with an arms race of defenses and billions of deaths every single day. It might take thousands of attempts to seed something that doesn’t just instantly die off.

Even a person with a sky high IQ can't destroy the world easily.

A plague can easily be made by a lone actor, made in a home lab, and spread via airflight to a dozen locations by the same.

Gene sequences can ever be ordered online.

The super intelligent AI wouldn't ask you to do anything. It would find the right people and trick them into doing the necessary steps, whatever they are.

This is groundless speculation; if you're going to go that far off the map, then we don't need to worry because a good AI (blue eyes not red) will have learnt to love by then and will save us.

There is currently no reason to believe that such a superintelligence is likely or would have any of the powers people claim.

>This is groundless speculation; if you're going to go that far off the map, then we don't need to worry because a good AI (blue eyes not red) will have learnt to love by then and will save us.

By shutting down open-weight models? Why not just do it now then?

You don't need to shut down open-weight models to avoid SkyNet; it's not relevant at all.

"If unlikely thing happens, then an unrelated miracle will also happen" is not actually how logic works.

There's no logic here already; the principle you should be applying is Hitchen's razor[1].

There is no reason to assume that super intelligent evil AI with magic powers will appear; while we are purely in the realm of (hackneyed) fantasy, why stop at imagining just one thing? You can build the whole story, not just the basilisk.

The parent comment is a story, not a prediction; it should be treated like one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

> My guess is that developing a new lethal virus or bacteria that is very infectious, is the easiest way, but even that requires a lot of high tech out of reach of most people.

You can do at home gene editing with open source software and have it synthesized into a bacteria for the cost of a nice meal for two (under $100), or viral vector for less than $500. That's in reach of anyone that can snatch a purse.

> at home gene editing with open source software

> That's in reach of anyone that can snatch a purse

I went to primary school with some guys who could/would snatch purses. I *promise* you, they are not able to gene edit organisms with FOSS.

I get your general point, but I think the bar to entry is still much higher than petty crime and larceny.

Where are all the home lab leaked pathogens then? 3D printed guns are a thing as well and yet they don't show up in most annual violent crime reports.

> 3D printed guns are a thing as well and yet they don't show up in most annual violent crime reports.

For now in most parts of the world it's easier to acquire a gun either legally or on the "grey market" and be assured that it will work for the intended purpose than to 3D print a gun, find a shooting range to test out the gun and iterate until it works fine enough.

and don't forget the bullets.

In most part of the world, bullets are illegal. If you are getting "grey market" bullets anyway, it is easy to get a "grey market" gun.

I think you're confusing DNA sequencing with DNA synthesis. DNA synthesis is much more expensive, around $0.07 per base pair [1], and bacteria have more than a million, so it's over $70.000. Then you just have the DNA, turning that into the bacteria is very complex, I'm not even sure whether it can be done.

Using CRISPR to modify existing bacteria is probably cheaper, but still complex.

[1] https://briefglance.com/articles/elegen-slashes-dna-synthesi...

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