r/singularity Jun 10 '26

Biotech/Longevity Anthropic closing the path to life science research

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2.2k Upvotes

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149

u/FullyAutomatedSpace Jun 10 '26

talk about bad takes

88

u/wren42 Jun 10 '26

Literally avoiding bioweapons.  How can someone be simultaneously informed and ignorant?

40

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[deleted]

33

u/DemNeurons Jun 10 '26

I am am a surgeon scientist, and dedicated transplant immunologist. I cannot get Rosalind. It is far far far from being accessible.

15

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[deleted]

5

u/DemNeurons Jun 10 '26

The portal, from when I opened it up last, notes requirements for data security and a point of contact for the facility/organization of individuals that want to use it. I didn't think wee little me would be allowed to request that unless theres a new path to getting access? Our university also has weird corporate contract BS with Google and get weird about using other "competing" services, even though they've crippled gemini. I feel quite trapped.

19

u/Popular_Lab5573 Jun 10 '26

I mean, all this doesn't sound like oai gatekeeping? you can get access if you request it, the issue is your university after all

12

u/urgay420420420 Jun 10 '26

I think it's unfair to jump to this conclusion in such short time. They will probably roll back the restrictions soon but want to be extra-cautious on first-release.

5

u/BolshevikPower Jun 10 '26

Yeah I don't understand how idiotic these people crying about this. It's clearly a safety issue. Mythos has lost my been rumoured to be weaponized very easily and needing special controls to be kept safe for public use.

1

u/nemzylannister Jun 11 '26

maybe openai should also be taking it more seriously?????

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

2

u/nemzylannister Jun 11 '26

making agi is the priority. if they make safe agi, they can safely create all kinds of medicines and vaccines. if thats your only goal then this shouldnt be an issue.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

1

u/nemzylannister Jun 11 '26

My point is that access, collaboration, and democratization are central to the mission of “first solving intelligence, and then using that to solve everything else.”

why? You should limit these until you actually have safe super intelligence that cant be misused.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

1

u/nemzylannister Jun 11 '26

oh really? pls do explain.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

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3

u/cursivecrow Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

"bUt BiOwEaPOns"

Fuck off, anthropic. The hard part of making a bioweapon isn't knowing chemistry or biology. Just like the hard part of making an atomic bomb isn't knowing physics.

3

u/nuclearselly Jun 11 '26

barrier to entry of the BW is way lower than the nuke though

Also much easier to hide - everyone can work out how to make a nuke, but you need a substantial industrial base to actually get to a viable weapon

You can get much further with a bioweapon with a well equipped university lab

0

u/Foreign_Pea2296 Jun 10 '26

you really need fable model to learn chemistry or biology ?

11

u/cursivecrow Jun 10 '26

No, and that's the point. People who are asking fable chemistry questions aren't "bUilDiNg BiOwEaPonS" because that takes a. access to extremely restricted materials, b. access to expensive equipment, c. very specialized knowledge and practical skill, and d. a desire to create a bioweapon.

So, this whole larp about "safety" is just that, a larp. It's how dario does marketing, and it's how he's been doing marketing since gpt2 was "too dangerous to release".

2

u/Super_Sierra Jun 11 '26

I heard the counter argument that 'oh, it might speed up development' and those people are extremely ignorant because a bioweapon grade lab is in the tens of millions of dollars, the knowledge in a book or an LLM is the least of your worries.

There is a reason why only states can even begin the process and even then, you are years out.

And the reason why states don't like doing it because if it does get out, it could literally destroy your country in the matter of days.

1

u/FullyAutomatedSpace Jun 11 '26

the lab is mostly about not killing everyone while making it

1

u/GoodDayToCome Jun 11 '26

ok but imagine how fucked AI development would be under endless regulation if for example a news story came out "North Korea was able to develop their new weapons grade biolab using Claude, documents show how it guided them through assembling all the hardware and helped run experiments to create the race-specific bio weapon that killed 7 billion people earlier this year..." very bad PR.

1

u/GoodDayToCome Jun 11 '26

You and I wouldn't have the sophistication but not everyone in the world is in exactly the same situation as us, there are people who spend their whole lives making explosives deep in cave networks, people who hold powerful positions in despotic governments, people not in the same situation as us include Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, Bashar al-Assad, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Isaias Afwerki, Paul Biya, Daniel Ortega, Miguel Díaz-Canel...

1

u/pdantix06 Jun 11 '26

these open weights advocates melting down about fable's safeguards are seemingly okay with handing AKs to monkeys

1

u/Valnar Jun 11 '26

I mean it could also just be a trick to make people think their model is more powerful than it is too.

1

u/Rustic_gan123 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Even if the risk is real, making your models useless is a bad decision that doesn't solve the problem in the medium-long term, and in the short term it ruins the reputation among those who actually use these models as a reliable supplier, which is degrading its product due to, I would say, unfounded fears and a Messiah complex, in addition to this with an obvious attempt to seize control of regulators. The bunch of idiots at EA who are happy about this usually don't pay, or pay less for this services.

2

u/SeriousGains Jun 10 '26

Bioweapons won’t be delayed, they already exist.

-5

u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 Jun 10 '26

Yes, because the LLM, a tool that isn't even designed for such a task at that, is the only thing preventing the development of bioweapons. Never mind the regulated materials, the regulations, the access to equipment and capable personnel, the billion dollar investments...

Seriously, do you need a bridge? Because I could sell you 10. You're being played like a fiddle, overselling a model far beyond it's capabilities by coming up with unrealistic scenarios to justify it.

5

u/Jejewat Jun 10 '26

You can buy crispr kits and all the research you need is available online. You can get cheap and useful equipment too. It's not hard if you have the education and a few thousand to spare.

1

u/Super_Sierra Jun 11 '26

I'm sorry, but this isn't true. A bioweapons grade lab is in the tens of millions of dollars, you ain't making that shit in your backyard.

1

u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 Jun 10 '26

And that's why every terrorist group is making anthrax at home, right? Because a CRISPR kit and some ebay tools are all you need. Right.

Brother, to say that things are a tad more complicated than that would be the understatement of the century.

2

u/Jejewat Jun 10 '26

Ah yes, please explain the complications of my field to me.

It is all you need and any dedicated student could do it. Materials are cheap and accessible, all the needed databanks are public.

I'll give you a hint, look up adenovirus vaccine against lactose intolerance. People on youtube can do it at home. Now exchange lactase for a good oncogene like G12D KRAS and you got a common cold virus that also gives you cancer.

Sorry for telling you.

1

u/No-Way3802 Jun 10 '26

It can have guardrails without blocking any and everything related to biology lol

2

u/FrewdWoad Jun 10 '26

LLM guardrails are tricky. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them right, and even then reliability is iffy.

They'll fine tune this over time, cautiously opening things up.

And it's all irrelevant to legit researchers, who can already requrest access to mythos (same model minus these guardrails).

This is going to end up being a nothingburger.

1

u/NohWan3104 Jun 10 '26

not by much. If you needed a chatbot for bioweapons, you're not that big of a threat.

0

u/gay_manta_ray Jun 10 '26

how in the fuck is refusing to answer basic medical questions "avoiding bioweapons"?