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Turns out Altman is a lab-leak covid truther, calls virus 'synthetic' according to Spectator piece on AI risk. (archive.is)

submitted 11 months ago by Architeuthis@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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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.’

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[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

One (simpler) explanation is that proving an absence of something is almost impossible, and that attempting too hard would make them look a heck of a lot guilty.

There is a good reason why the burden of evidence is “innocent until proven guilty”, and yes this extends to the (in your eyes) untrustworthy.

Prove to me you never stole candy from a store as a child (or if you did, replace that accusation with any item of higher value until you hit something you did not steal)

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There is also the whole 'why would we have to prove anything? We are fucking China!' stance all big hegemonic countries have.

[–] Shitgenstein1@awful.systems 6 points 11 months ago

It's not just big hegemonic countries in general but specifically the particularly image-obsessed character of geopolitics in East Asia. Mianzi is a real concern in Chinese diplomacy.