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bioweapons
Trends
- 1Researchers rank extreme risks from advanced AI systems▼Nuclear war, bioweapons, runaway AI: How researchers rank risks of smart systems
Researchers have published a ranking of the most serious risks posed by advanced AI systems, placing catastrophic scenarios such as nuclear war, bioweapons development and runaway AI among the potential dangers. The work compares how experts weigh these different threats, reflecting a growing effort to assess and prioritize worst-case outcomes from increasingly powerful artificial intelligence.
- 2Experts weigh AI risks for biological weapons▼How concerning is the biological weapon threat from AI systems?
Questions are being raised about how artificial intelligence systems could lower barriers to developing biological weapons. The debate centres on whether advanced AI models might provide dangerous knowledge or assistance to bad actors, and what safeguards governments and AI developers should put in place to prevent misuse of the technology in bioweapon development.
- 3Secret Cold War bioweapons test exposed millions in Bay Area●The secret Cold War bioweapons test that exposed millions in the Bay Area
A newly detailed account revisits the 1950 Operation Sea-Spray, in which the US Navy sprayed Serratia marcescens bacteria over San Francisco from ships offshore to study how a biological attack might spread. The tests exposed an estimated 800,000 residents to the bacteria without their knowledge, and have since been linked to infections and at least one death. Readers are debating the ethics of secret government experiments on civilians and what accountability, if any, followed.