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I fully agree. If this work absolutely has to be done, do it somewhere very remote like St. Elba or some similar island. Slap a 3 month quarantine on anything that leaves. Harsh penalties for those who redefine their work so it escapes the broad definitions of what is not allowed. Especially harsh penalties for those who do the most dangerous kind of work - using humanized mice so that their novel viruses is more at home with our biology.
But this work doesn't have to be done. The risk is totally out of balance with the reward. We do not gain much from GoF work. If we create new viruses, do we then create new vaccines for them too? There's a nigh-infinite number of deadly viruses we could create. The root cause is really just bored scientists wanting to do interesting work. Growing and editing viruses is fun, it lets you churn out new papers and demonstrate originality in your research. There needs to be a powerful deterrent to prevent this, preferably a deterrent that encourages defection from within the scientific community. Nobody in Stalin's Russia would dare do 'interesting' political science or economics research, lest they get reported to the NKVD. There needs to be a similar method that lets scientists dob in their comrades to gain status or financial rewards. This would slow research considerably in this field, not at all a bad thing in my mind. Genetic engineering is very dangerous and should be treated with care.
We really are not going to have a pleasant century if we have no concept of institutionalized caution over dangers capable of exponential growth. Biotechnology is only going to get easier. AI is only going to get more powerful. If we don't take these dangers seriously, like we take nuclear weapons, then we will get the fate we deserve.
St. Helena. Elba was the one that wasn't remote enough to prevent a leak of Bonapartism.
Good catch! I get them mixed up.
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