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

the viruses themselves would be marked with radioactive isotopes.

Is that true? Once the virus replicated in a cell, the new copies wouldn't be tagged, right?

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The new ones wouldn't. But the original radioactive atoms would still be in your body, and they can be detected (within a reasonable amount of time).

Edit: But if the new viruses infect another person, they wouldn't have the radioactivity. So usually, in case of a leak, the plan would be to quarantine anyone exposed to the viruses (as detected by radioactivity) and anyone who has been with them that day.

[–] Evinceo@awful.systems 5 points 11 months ago

For the lab leak theory to work you have to assume not only that some workers at the lab got infected, but also that they spread it all over the city before anybody noticed, such that by the time anyone did notice, they were several degrees of contact from the lab workers.

[–] mscibing@hachyderm.io 2 points 11 months ago

@emergencyfood @Evinceo Naw. People have some radioactive atoms in their bodies all the time. But the viruses are marked in another way: they have particular genetic sequences. And with the march of technology the Wuhan Institute of Virology would have sequenced the viruses they were studying and been able to compare the sequences on file with the Covid-19 pathogen.