Anyway, Maybe a few years ago the barrier to entry was too high for most people but that is so not the case anymore. Even just this year a friend sent me a link to a $2000 gizmo that was about the size of a pack of gum that could do desktop sequencing. Generating your own custom DNA in your bedroom is considerably harder (but not impossible) but it is not at all difficult to order a custom sequence from a half dozen different retailers. The file you send them is just a big chunk of a few letters. It’s assembly code with no comments (yes I know folks do put in comments in text sometimes and sometimes biologically but just like always comments lie more than not), they functionally cannot be checking for what it could do if what you’re working on is even remotely novel. For the price of a playstation you can have it delivered to your door next day air.
There are very real risks here for our entire planet. Possibly one of our largest risks. To hide behind “it’s too difficult for a malicious actor” is not helpful. I think genetic literacy is maybe the only thing we all can do as we might be entering very weird territory as a closed system that has a bent towards global narcissism and self harm.
Something that gives me some comfort is that to be good at it you really have to do a gross and difficult deep dive into how all life works and I think there are very few people that could do that and still feel like it’s ok to do harm at even a small scale. The things we are going to see in the next few years will be pretty fucking weird. I guess when you get down to this level, the only thing to have is something like faith. Eeeek.