alt Hacker NewsI don't fully understand the instinct to regulate local models for this? It seems like the wrong place to address the problem.
You can download Ebola sequences right now if you want to. That's not the same as having an isolate. The difference is a lot of messy reality. This kind of work is not generally "one shot" (Claude make me a supervirus, make no mistakes), it requires lab space, iteration, and specific resources. It has a footprint.
Wouldn't it make more sense to monitor / regulate facilities where you can sequence or request assembly of DNA, RNA, restrict and monitor the supply of key reagents and so on?
It depends how easy it is (now, or in the near future) to turn information into weapons, and how realistic control of materials is. There's a reason we control access to plutonium, but information about metastable hafnium.