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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 Architeuthis@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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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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[–] Nihilistra@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But would the world Powers have said something if it was an escaped virus out of the Chinese Lab in Wuhan?

I don't think it's a coincidence that the wet market is 20 mins from a lab working on bats and viruses.

You have a global Pandemic, but also a big part of the population wants revenge because the Chinese can't keep their lab viruses contained and killed grandma with covid, quite a spicy meatball there.

[–] blargerer@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Of course the labs location isn't a coincidence. They built the lab that studies corona viruses near a huge natural reserve of bats infected with corona viruses.

[–] sweetcuppincakes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Well maybe they shouldn't have, you know, in case there's a lab leak. Not saying there was, just saying that these virology labs scare me

[–] locallynonlinear@awful.systems 1 points 1 year ago

duh, duh duh, duh, duuuuuuuuuh, yup.

[–] Unaware7013@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

but also a big part of the population wants revenge because the Chinese can’t keep their lab viruses contained and killed grandma with covid, quite a spicy meatball there.

A shockingly large portion of the population is dumb and refuses to listen to reality, so it's no surprise they believe in a big bad ruining their 2020s and killing grandma rather than just dumb bad luck with a new virus.

Let's also not forget that we also had a large amount of people who refused to do basic COVID prevention techniques like masking, so I'm betting the venn diagram here is pretty close to a circle...