zekefoppa

methinks it is more likely that I read it but missed the point? Would you be able to share what I misunderstood?

I'm far from anything resembling an expert in biological weapons, but this seems to me puzzlingly overconfident in the opposite direction.

> PhD students in 2026 using state-of-the-art AI software are spending months or years trying to design simple peptide binders that inhibit some enzyme or pull down some protein

This confuses me, as state-of-the-art AI software is moving quite quickly. Any software that is currently state-of-the-art AI.. hasn't existed for years, maybe not even for months.

It also seems quite odd to claim that there are no sufficiently dangerous diseases when we have high-security research labs dedicated to exploring.. exactly these kinds of diseases.

And, even if it's not a disgruntled teenager, it just takes one leak from a lab that has 10xd productivity using AI tools.

This is a real risk that existed before AI, one that I think we can now confidently say that society is under-prepared for since 2020. It is certainly magnified by AI, even if it's not 100x.

The author even seems to recognize this:

> So, if you’re worried about AI-designed superviruses, think COVID, not Ebola. And if you’re now a little less worried, maybe you understand where I’m coming from.

This is exactly where I think most people are starting from, and that's _why we're worried_.

Imo the title here buries the lede: we've known that trees form tension wood in response to external stress. This study claims to find that trees will form it in response only to their own curvature, independent of external factors even including gravity. They compare it to proprioception. That's neat!

Honest question - why can't I just vibecode a solution? I rented a $5 lightsail instance, and so far AI has been great at deploying individual containers, creating safe boundaries, letting them interact, etc. What do I not know that makes me want Cloud in a Bottle?