"It's a smokescreen" - this is how Steven Pinker sees AI founders' existential threats. " They've been much less willing to face up to the responsibility of let's make sure that this doesn't result in bioterrorism..." Listen to The New Society wherever you get your podcasts.

I notice Steven hasn't got round to responding to Scott who showed extensively how deficient Pinker's arguments are on this topic.

Not long ago Pinker was arguing that AI would never be capable of basic deduction. If you'd suggested then that it would enable bioterrorism he'd have said you'd been reading too much sci fi.

It's extraordinary how Pinker can talk so eloquently with hardly a pause as if speaking the written word. What a mind.