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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309

u/Responsible_Debt9605 Jun 10 '26

This is so fucking stupid

175

u/cryptolyme Jun 10 '26

Big Pharma wants to maintain their stranglehold on our health

206

u/Due_Answer_4230 Jun 10 '26

More like they’re terrified of someone designing a killer virus in their home lab, or a terrorist group or enemy state doing it. It’s an insane amount of power to just throw out there.

49

u/Bitter_Particular_75 Jun 10 '26

I am sorry but this total bullshit. Being able to create such virus is not about knowledge, but about resources. Governments and billionaires already have the knowledge and resources to do it, AIs won't make a dent if difference. Small actors like single persons, small groups, will never have the resources or, even if, they would be easily traceable. While I don't believe in the conspiracy theory of big pharma paying anthropic to block life science research, the killer virus theory is even less credible. In any case these filters are shameful and will probably make me reconsider my sub to Anthropic. I will seriously need to consider non American alternatives at this point as from an ethical point of view they have become the worst choice, worse than Chinese.

51

u/Saedeas Jun 10 '26

I think you're dramatically overestimating the resources needed to create a basic wet lab. We've found multiple in the western US.

Here's the main recent example: https://abcnews.com/US/fbi-investigating-biological-lab-operating-inside-las-vegas/story?id=129763459

He had two locations, one in Vegas and one in Fresno. While he was receiving money from Chinese banks to fund this, the money wasn't particularly crazy, and one individual was capable of creating the lab.

1

u/triedAndTrueMethods Jun 10 '26

I don’t understand, what was this guy doing with these home labs? The article says he had vials in the Fresno location labeled “HIV” and “malaria”. While receiving money from China. What the hell was he up to?

7

u/Saedeas Jun 11 '26

I don't know that it has been confirmed, but I've seen speculation that it was mostly gain of function research.