Assertion certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Hendrycks: Reasoning models have reached expert-level virology capabilities

Dan Hendrycks · No Priors Ep. 105 | With Director of the Center of AI Safety Dan Hendrycks · Mar 5, 2025 · at 5:43

Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, explains which AI capabilities pose immediate national security and biosecurity risks.

0:00 / 0:27exact quote · 27.3s
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“The AIs are getting very good at STEM PhD level types of topics, and that includes virology. So I think that they are sort of rounding the corner on being able to provide expert level capabilities in terms of their knowledge of the literature, Or even helping in practical wet lab situations. So I do think on the virology aspect they do have already national security implications, but that's only very recently with the reason reasoning models.”

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