Audio Essays: Two Looming Technological Threats

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Audio Essays: Two Looming Technological Threats

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Audio Essays: Two Looming Technological Threats

Mar 22, 2023

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Nonzero Newsletter

Another reason to take the lab-leak hypothesis seriously

This piece (in slightly different form) is also appearing in The Washington Post. It’s understandable that many Americans on Team Blue are deeply skeptical, if not completely dismissive, of the “lab leak hypothesis.” The idea that the Covid virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan—and, in most versions of the story, was genetically engineered there—got much of its initial impetus from not-very-reality-based Trumpists, such as the famously inventive Steve Bannon. And the hypothesis fit suspiciously well into their longstanding agenda of demonizing China. Trump trade adviser and rabid China hawk Peter Navarro went so far as to suggest that the Chinese had developed Covid as a bioweapon…

2 years ago · 35 likes · 20 comments · Nonzero

Nonzero Newsletter

OK, it’s time to freak out about AI

This week New York Times columnist Ezra Klein joined the ranks of those who are seriously freaked out about artificial intelligence. And he did this in a column posted two days before OpenAI announced the release of its latest AI, GPT-4—an event that led to such headlines…

2 years ago · 92 likes · 22 comments · Nonzero

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