The distinction also feels very thin with some biotech research: consider e.g. the various debates of whether to publish the genome of various diseases. Arguably, there it might be easier to use that information to do damage than to do good: to do damage, you only need to synthesize the pathogen, whereas figuring out how to use the genome to defend against it better takes more effort.
The distinction also feels very thin with some biotech research: consider e.g. the various debates of whether to publish the genome of various diseases. Arguably, there it might be easier to use that information to do damage than to do good: to do damage, you only need to synthesize the pathogen, whereas figuring out how to use the genome to defend against it better takes more effort.