Husband, Father. Working on #bioeconomy & #biosecurity policy.
Joined April 2011
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Matt Watson retweeted
It will be morbidly interesting to see the diversity of schemes which AI cooks up to kill exactly 50 people
Anthropic's proposed AI safety bill sets "killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people" as the risk threshold for blocking the release of an AI model
In contrast, when a single patient (Jesse Gelsinger) died in a gene therapy clinical trial in 1999:
- The institute that ran the trial was dissolved
- The senior scientist running the trial was banned from clinical work for 5 years
- Gene therapy saw deep cuts in funding and research activity for a decade
Tech and biotech have just profoundly different cultures of risk. As AI companies increasingly engage with biomedical research, a culture clash is inevitable
politico.com/news/2026/10/16…
Matt Watson retweeted
Isomorphic Labs is at a critical juncture — The company is attempting to grow beyond AlphaFold, while contending with the high expectations that investors and CEO Demis Hassabis have set for the company.
I dig in, and take stock of its clinical trial timeline, for @statnews
Isomorphic Labs wants to turn its technology into an engine for new medicines. The question now is whether — and how — it can deliver on that promise. trib.al/YBxnZAh
Matt Watson retweeted
“Local health departments are simply overwhelmed by the sheer scope of measles cases” thehill.com/policy/healthcar…
Matt Watson retweeted
How are insurers responding to various AI risks?
New report: bit.ly/4ybanEY
Matt Watson retweeted
China is getting more worried about AI risks and national security.
This was the most striking part of China’s new draft export controls on AI and other technologies:
“Technologies proposed for control in this round, such as AI-driven autonomous malware generation and mutation technologies, could be used to attack sensitive systems, including national critical information infrastructure, national defense and military industries, and core government operations, or to circumvent national security defenses. If acquired by non-state actors or malicious entities, these technologies could pose threats to national security and the collective security of humanity.”
Especially that last line: 可能对国家安全和人类共同安全造成危害
Matt Watson retweeted
For the first time this year, data centers have become targets for bombardment in global conflicts.
Our analysis shows at least 27 such attacks in 2026.
Experts worry the targeting of data centers opens a Pandora's box that cannot be closed.
nbcnews.com/tech/security/da…
Matt Watson retweeted
Fascinating account of how AI agents are becoming an increasingly important part of Anthropic's org chart.
Engineers are facing “an army of Claudes, with every one asking for [their] attention.”
The general equilibrium implications are profound.
This is such a great grounded quantitative (and qualitative) case study of one bleeding edge organization as it adapts to using agents everywhere.
Must read if you want a glimpse of the organization of the future.
Well done @natewilmers and team! (Loved the UAW reference from the 1950s)
anthropic.com/research/emplo…
Matt Watson retweeted
"we can reconstruct in rich detail not only something that you consciously perceive, but also something that escapes your awareness"
1/ We discovered something totally unexpected about the neural structure of consciousness that overturns decades of thinking on its biological basis and brings us significantly closer to the recipe for generating conscious awareness.
New preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.64898… (led by @HesseJanis, with @FrankLanfranchi, @_conor_mcgrory, @Yuelin_Shi, and @EngelTatiana)
Matt Watson retweeted
RFI: Human case of avian influenza A(H5) linked to infected dairy cattle in Washington State, USA. RFI on subtype, symptoms, and illness onset date beaconbio.org/en/report/?rep… via @beacon_bio
Matt Watson retweeted
CivSoc statement on #bioweapons to #UNGA81 #FirstCommittee says #1972BWC must keep pace with changing biorisks shaped by #AI, synbio & lab automation. Delivered by @Alex_Phelan, it calls for progress on S&T review, compliance, verification, investigations tinyurl.com/4h38kfph
Matt Watson retweeted
Going to get this quote framed and hang it up in my apartment like one of those Live Laugh Love signs
Matt Watson retweeted
Letters have been sent across the nation - great work by USPS intercepting them
Someone sent letters with suspicious white powder to congressional offices again today - on the 25th anniversary of the anthrax attack on Capitol Hill
politico.com/live-updates/20…
Matt Watson retweeted
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI and Postal Service are investigating letters with 'suspicious substances' sent to congressional and election offices.
Matt Watson retweeted
There is more OSINT data for monitoring WMD & missile proliferation than ever. Can ML help sift through it?
In our AI-WMD special issue, Yanliang Pan examines ML-enabled OSINT benefits & risks, including bias & “hyper-transparency.”
Ungated through Oct.: doi.org/10.1080/10736700.202…
Matt Watson retweeted
Online now: The $100 genome: three platforms reshaping clinical genomics dlvr.it/TVwlwb
Matt Watson retweeted
Big news! Our new book, "Making the Modern Laboratory," is now available for pre-order. It is a stunning, 504-page hardcover book that explains how the research laboratory, and everything in it, came to be.
Did you know that the modern micropipette was invented by a German postdoc so frustrated with mouth pipetting that he ditched his lab for two days until could return with a prototype?
Or that an 18th-century scientist sewed tiny taffeta pants for male frogs to determine whether or not semen was essential for fertilization?
These stories and hundreds more are told in the book, which has a hard cloth cover and is printed in full color on Arena Natural Rough, a textured, uncoated paper made by Fedrigoni. The book is also finished with colored endpapers, thread-sewn binding, and a squared spine. It is priced at $49 and worth every penny.
Learn more and order: press.asimov.com/articles/mo…
Matt Watson retweeted
To infer a phylogenetic tree you must assume an evolutionary model. But inference has required unrealistic assumptions: constant mutation rates, no indels, etc. With DeepPhylo, we can infer trees in richer models!
arxiv.org/abs/2610.19053
w/ @EthanBaron78553, @andrewgwils! 1/8
Matt Watson retweeted
I joined the Global Governance podcast to talk about the many challenges facing international law today. Take a listen:
globalgovernanceforum.org/po…
Matt Watson retweeted
in our lifetimes, some will cure disease, others will make the best wine in the history of the world
@PiFranceschi
