Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#11

Post by collingreen »

jackblemming wrote: post #9
alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

Seems like no matter how positive the headline about the technology is, there is invariably someone in the comments pointing out a worst case hypothetical. Is there a name for this phenomenon?

Not believing everything you read on the internet? Being jaded from constant fluff and lies? Not having gell-mann amnesia?

I get your sentiment of "why you gotta bring down this good thing" but the answer to your actual question is battle scars from the constant barrage of hostile lies and whitewashing we are subject to. It's kind of absurd (and mildly irresponsible) to think "THIS time will be the time things only go well and nobody uses the new thing for something I don't want".

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#12

Post by alganet »

vessenes wrote: post #5
alganet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these safety teams subject to the oversight of more estabilished international agreements and safeguards?

I mean.. they work within the legal frameworks of very large corporations with nation state engagement. It's not like they're autonomous anonymous DAOs

That does not answer my question.

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#13

Post by bix6 »

vessenes wrote: post #3
alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

Well you might be pleased to know that there are large safety teams working at all frontier model companies worried about the same thing! You could even apply if you have related skills.

I thought openAI gave up on safety when Anthropic splintered off as well as when they engaged ScaleAI to traumatize people for RLHF?

Or Google when they fired Timnit?

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#14

Post by OJFord »

jackblemming wrote: post #9
alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

Seems like no matter how positive the headline about the technology is, there is invariably someone in the comments pointing out a worst case hypothetical. Is there a name for this phenomenon?

Pessimism?

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#16

Post by trhway »

alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

We’ve just had a virus - specifically engineered to be highly infectious for humans - escaping the lab (which was running very lax safety level - BSL2 instead of required BSL4) and killing millions and shutting down half the globe. So I’m wondering what safeguards and prevention you’re talking about :)

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#17

Post by LeoPanthera »

trhway wrote: post #16
alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

We’ve just had a virus - specifically engineered to be highly infectious for humans - escaping the lab (which was running very lax safety level - BSL2 instead of required BSL4) and killing millions and shutting down half the globe. So I’m wondering what safeguards and prevention you’re talking about :)

Don't spread misinformation. This myth is widely believed only by Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Virus_...

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#18

Post by trhway »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #17
trhway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve just had a virus - specifically engineered to be highly infectious for humans - escaping the lab (which was running very lax safety level - BSL2 instead of required BSL4) and killing millions and shutting down half the globe. So I’m wondering what safeguards and prevention you’re talking about :)

Don't spread misinformation. This myth is widely believed only by Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Virus_...

This myth is documented in the EcoHealth Alliance publicly available NIH and DARPA grants documents among others. Wrt your link - Wikipedia unfortunately isn’t subject to the law like those grants.

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#19

Post by alganet »

trhway wrote: post #16
alganet wrote: post #2

I am concerned about this kind of technology being used to circumvent traditional safeguards and international agreements that prevent the development of biological weapons.

We’ve just had a virus - specifically engineered to be highly infectious for humans - escaping the lab (which was running very lax safety level - BSL2 instead of required BSL4) and killing millions and shutting down half the globe. So I’m wondering what safeguards and prevention you’re talking about :)

You're trying to deflect the discussion into a polemic tarpit. That's not going to work.

I do not endorse the view that covid was engineered. Also, I consider it to be unrelated to what I am concerned about, and I will kindly explain it to you:

Traditional labs work with the wet stuff. And there are a lot of safeguards (the levels you mentioned didn't came out of thin air). Of course I am in favor of enforcing the existing safeguards to the most ethical levels possible.

However, when I say that I am concerned about AI being used to circumvent international agreements, I am talking about loopholes that could allow progress in the development of bioweapons without the use of wet labs. For example, by carefully weaving around international rules and doing the development using simulations, which can bypass outdated assumptions that didn't foresaw that this could be possible when they were conceived.

This is not new. For example, many people were concerned about research on fusion energy related to compressing fuel pellets, which could be seen as a way of weaving around international treatises on the development of precursor components to more powerful nuclear weapons (better triggers, smaller warheads, all kinds of nasty things).

Re: A Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway

#20

Post by alganet »

trhway wrote: post #18
LeoPanthera wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't spread misinformation. This myth is widely believed only by Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Virus_...

This myth is documented in the EcoHealth Alliance publicly available NIH and DARPA grants documents among others. Wrt your link - Wikipedia unfortunately isn’t subject to the law like those grants.

Covid is irrelevant to the discussion I opened. You're trying to steer the discussion into a place that will lead us nowhere because there's too many artificial polemics around it.

The only thing to be said about it that resonates with what I'm concerned with is that anyone that is good in the head wants better international oversight on potential bioweapons development.

Post reply on HN