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

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I would like to not have another synthetic pathogen cause a global pandemic.

Gonna ignore the urge to sneer at the tinfoil hattery here. See the rest of this comment section for that.

I think we can all agree that wasn’t a great experience

Sam, you have a doomsday bunker and a bunch of cash. This was one of your dream scenarios. Don't pretend like you're one of us.

Takes like this are one of the many things I pull out to point out how naive and misguided most x-risk obsessive people are. And especially Mr. Altman.

Despite wide fears of synthetic gain of function attacks, as it turns out, it's actually really hard to create a new virus meaningfully stronger than the standard endemic ones that already exist. Many countries and labs have legitimately tried. Lots of papers and research. It's, really really hard to beat nature at the microbiological scale; Viruses have to not only be virulent, but it has to contend with extremely unpredictable intermediate environments. The current endemic viruses got there through many mutations and adaptations inside environments that they were already at least successful (and not in vitro). And in the end, what would be the point? Once a virulent virus breaks out, you have very little control. Either it works really well and backfires or, even far more likely, it doesn't do that much at all, but it does piss other nations off.

It's not impossible. But honestly, yeah, I don't comprehend x-riskers who obsess over this.

Wait, I've been out for a bit - what was the actual consensus on Covid? I genuinely thought there was a Wuhan Lab that this all originated from?

I'm not a nut job, I can be reasoned with, i just need to update my beliefs with new info

why are the comments on this post such a disaster. who are these people

yor mums a lab leek

you mean the ceo ______ is an idiot?

As they say in Australia, he is cooked.

This sounds like a bad take, but for good reasons. I would like the people making AI to take really, really seriously the potential of synthetic viruses. It sounds like he's doing that (rather than working backwards from racism).

There's a good possibility that it was due to a lab leak, but it doesn't necessarily have to be synthetic. This was a lab taking too many liberties handling a virus that was already at risk of making the jump to humans, is it "lab-leak covid truther" to claim the inevitable under those circumstances would happen?

"Synthetic" and "lab leak" are not mutually exclusive. It could have been either, neither, or both.

Everyone who is saying virus spread from bats to humans - you do realize there were people researching on bats in Wuhan, right? If it's from a bat, that doesn't automatically mean from a bat in nature.

Is there any evidence he was fired for these beliefs? Using the deliberately vague phrase, "earlier this year" in November gives the impression of an author trying to either manufacture causation where none exists.

The only part of this article about Altman is the beginning. This author seems incredibly passionate about virology and is using recent news to draw attention to the author's points on the subject.

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.

Who gives a fuck. Let's not turn this guy into a new Elon Musk.

Now that he needs to be cancelled such things are popping up like crazy!