our best idea yet - ai generated viruses

here's one for you.

man walks into a datacenter, asks the machine "hey, you're an llm, right?"

the machine replies "yes, i am, how can i help you"

the man replies "here's an idea, create me a deadly virus that can wipe out humanity that scientists, humans or machines have never seen before, thus we have no way to fight or cure it"

the machine replies "sure, i'll get started right away!"

well, the irony here is that my joke wasn't funny. neither was the dumb idea behind it.

ladies and gentlemen, we're meant to be using superintelligence to CURE DISEASES THAT ALREADY EXIST, not use them TO MAKE NEW VIRUSES.

never did i envision myself writing this, alas, here we are.

the problem is, synthetic or not, once the formula for said virus works and has been created, the second that data hits an internal or external network, it's public. worse yet, if an ai training set somehow includes that data, and then we reach a terminator scenario, congratulations, you've handed the machine army a smoking gun.

jesus christ.

source: https://aimagazine.com/news/how-stanford-scientists-created-a-synthetic-virus-with-ai