Dario Amodei

The 21st century technologies, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses, widely within reach of individuals or small groups.

They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials.

We are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeath to the nation-states to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

End quote.

What Joy is pointing to is the idea that causing large-scale destruction requires both motive and ability, and as long as ability is restricted to a small set of highly trained people, there is relatively limited risk of single individuals, or small groups, causing such destruction.

A disturbed loner can perpetrate a school shooting, but probably can't build a nuclear weapon or release a plague.

In fact, ability and motive may even be negatively correlated.

The kind of person who has the ability to release a plague is probably highly educated.

likely a PhD in molecular biology, and a particularly resourceful one, with a promising career, a stable and disciplined personality, and a lot to lose.

This kind of person is unlikely to be interested in killing a huge number of people for no benefit to themselves and at great risk to their own future.

They would need to be motivated by pure malice, intense grievance, or instability.

Such people do exist, but they are rare and tend to become huge stories when they occur, precisely because they are so unusual.

They also tend to be difficult to catch because they are intelligent and capable, sometimes leaving mysteries that take years or decades to solve.

The most famous example is probably mathematician Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who evaded FBI capture for nearly 20 years and was driven by an anti-technological ideology.

Another example is biodefence researcher Bruce Ivins, who seems to have orchestrated a series of anthrax attacks in 2001.

It's also happened with skilled non-state organisations.

the cult Aum Shinrikyo managed to obtain sarin nerve gas and kill 14 people, as well as injuring hundreds more, by releasing it in the Tokyo subway in 1995.

Thankfully, none of these attacks used contagious biological agents, because the ability to construct or obtain these agents was beyond the capabilities of even these people.

Advances in molecular biology have now significantly lowered the barrier to creating biological weapons, especially in terms of availability of materials, but it still takes an enormous amount of expertise in order to do so.

I am concerned that a genius in everyone's pocket could remove that barrier, essentially making everyone a PhD virologist who can be walked through the process of designing, synthesizing, and releasing a biological weapon step by step.