From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Aug 18 2002 - 12:34:51 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2002, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
>>I'd like to see this system successfully tested against anthrax, smallpox,
>>or AIDS before I relied on it as a defense against future existential risks.
>
> There was a Science paper earlier this year about an anthrax toxin anti-toxin.
> That was done by one group at Harvard. It turns out that part of the antrax
> toxin(s) requires multiple subunits to assemble into the transporter that
> gets some of the other toxins into the cell. A malformed subunit disrupts
> the whole complex sufficintly that it can't function.
>
> I would assume that people are moving it towards clinical trials.
No, I mean I would like to see tested the claim that this system, given a
massive effort, can produce a cure in one or two weeks. Five years, sure.
Two weeks is hard to see no matter how much effort got put in; and for
that reason I'd like to see it tested before relying on it as a means of
defending against bioterrorist attack. We do not live in the Earthweb
world yet.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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