alt Hacker NewsOk... and where did the LLM get such information?
Did you miss where I said "surely you can also Google such topics"?
I mean it's right there in your quote actually, in the last paragraph. Sort of undermines your point, no?
So why not ban Google? Are LLM providers less likely to work with the government? Don't we assume if you type something sketch into Google the government knows? Why would the LLM be any different?
Just doesn't make sense. Appealing to RANDs expertise is one thing but we can also employ some common sense. The takeaway from this should probably be if someone really wants to make and deploy a bioweapon they probably already could. Perhaps this then means mitigations already in place are sufficient. After all, most people aren't psychopaths.
Theoretically every piece of info you need to program the whole computer stack from low level to high level is out there on the internet too. But, LLMs make it easier for more people to do the thing who couldn't connect these disparate pieces of information and fit it into their own brain previously. That is what they are trying to do with this sort of research, to see how easy it is for people who might have an axe to grind to get a viable turnkey solution out of them without needing a PhD in virology. There are probably a lot of people who have an axe to grind in some way, either of 'sound' mind or not.