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Turns out Altman is a lab-leak covid truther, calls virus 'synthetic' according to Spectator piece on AI risk. (archive.is)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Sam Altman, the recently fired (and rehired) chief executive of Open AI, was asked earlier this year by his fellow tech billionaire Patrick Collison what he thought of the risks of synthetic biology. ‘I would like to not have another synthetic pathogen cause a global pandemic. I think we can all agree that wasn’t a great experience,’ he replied. ‘Wasn’t that bad compared to what it could have been, but I’m surprised there has not been more global coordination and I think we should have more of that.’

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think it's a fairly credible claim, that the coronavirus originated in a lab. There's been leaks in the past, of similar pathogens - once in the USA and once in Taiwan, I think. Not a very interesting conspiracy theory. Equally, animal agriculture is ripe for the development of zoonoses, regardless of the country. I don't think it's especially important, ultimately, unless it informs better practices in both areas.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You appear to be lost. Have you checked the sideboard for instructions?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’m waiting for them to post something relevant to Sam Altman or you know maybe just a general techtake????

I know I’m gonna be disappointed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Couldn’t even be bothered to make some tortured Tolkien, only an oblique reference

Let’s see..

All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The post that is strong does not wither
These others’ posting remain a cost

Merely 3 minutes of idle thought! Imagine how many GPUs I could’ve 10tok/s’d for it! Oh the humanity

e: fuck you lemmy, give me newlines

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aaand I made that mistake again: I looked at their other posts

Fucking hell.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe turn this into a private group if you're bothered. For whatever reason this thread has appeared on Top Everything, so that's where your visitors are coming from.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We're not bothered. We're bored. Off you go now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

still boggling at the high degree of redditor logic behind “this thread appeared on my screen therefore I’m welcome to post my garbage in it”. I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the couple of r/SneerClub threads demanding that SneerClub never appear on the poster’s Reddit homepage ever again

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

Not all who wander, etc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Explain SARS and MERS, midwit.