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Bioweapons are most dangerous for their wannabe creators. If the Houthis decide to create their own AI enabled bioweapon program it will lead to depopulated Yemen.
Agreed. The risk still exists that some group would want bioweapons anyways. Aum Shinrikyo would have made and deployed bioweapons if it was feasible. And indeed they'd be at least as likely to be killed by the weapon as their victims. That's little comfort to me.
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And, what, the virus will just stop at the border because it doesn't have a passport? In our modern highly-connected world, a contagious virus is almost impossible to contain. China and Australia did arguably manage to succeed with COVID, but it cost them dearly.
This is why nukes, and not bioweapons, have always been the WMD of choice for state-level actors (and how we got a basically unprecedented level of global cooperation for eliminating smallpox). A weapon that kills 50% of your enemy's population and yours just isn't all that useful. But if the bar for developing one is lowered, then a small terrorist group might decide that depopulating the world would be just spiffy.
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