147

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.’

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] gerikson@awful.systems 87 points 1 year ago

I believe the scientific consensus is that it originated in a wet market in Wuhan.

The "lab leak theory", while not impossible, is also shorthand for a morass of conspiracy theories grounded in racist attitudes towards China. It somehow conflates that the pandemic is China's fault, if not an outright attack from China, while simultaneously downplaying any efforts to mitigate such an attack.

[-] Nihilistra@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

But would the world Powers have said something if it was an escaped virus out of the Chinese Lab in Wuhan?

I don't think it's a coincidence that the wet market is 20 mins from a lab working on bats and viruses.

You have a global Pandemic, but also a big part of the population wants revenge because the Chinese can't keep their lab viruses contained and killed grandma with covid, quite a spicy meatball there.

[-] blargerer@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago

Of course the labs location isn't a coincidence. They built the lab that studies corona viruses near a huge natural reserve of bats infected with corona viruses.

[-] locallynonlinear@awful.systems 1 points 1 year ago

duh, duh duh, duh, duuuuuuuuuh, yup.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
147 points (100.0% liked)

TechTakes

1427 readers
125 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS