Do-it-yourself bioweapon engineering is pure fantasy – expertise from the internet isn’t enough, even states have massive difficulties creating expertise

Others have echoed the same line. For example, in a study of risks from `do-it-yourself’ biological science, David Sarpong and colleagues consider the risk that sophisticated technologies may be readily available to malicious actors. They respond, echoing Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, that it is not the mere availability of technology but also a rich tapestry of expert knowledge that is required to synthesize and distribute advanced bioweapons, and that this knowledge is unlikely to be available to nonstate actors.

Among the possible safety risks, Mukunda et al. (2009) warn that, considering the history of computer hacking where people with malicious intent create software viruses for nefarious purposes, the democratisation of synthetic biology would make the technology readily available to individuals and groups who would use it to intentionally cause harm. However, some analysts note the high improbability of this scenario, given that the effective use of synthetic biology techniques relies on skills and techniques that cannot be easily codified (in this case not easily found on the internet), but instead are acquired through a hugely lengthy process of ‘learning by doing’ or ‘learning by example’. This is what these analysts refer to as ‘tacit knowledge’ (Revill and Jefferson, 2013; Jefferson et al., 2014). Here, we draw on the discussions as presented by Tucker (2011) and Jefferson et al. (2014) in order to reveal the dynamics of the biosecurity risk assessment. In the assessment of risk of misuse, it becomes pertinent to differentiate among potential actors according to their financial assets and technical capabilities – from states with well-developed bio-warfare programmes, to terrorist organisations of varying size and sophistication, or individual hackers motivated by ideological or other grievances. As revealed by the study of state-level bio-warfare programmes, the production of biological weapons necessitates an interdisciplinary team of experts with expansive knowledge in fields such as microbiology, aerobiology etc. States are therefore generally more capable of organising and sustaining such teams than non-state actors.

What doomsayers must show is not merely that the information and equipment necessary to produce harmful bioweapons will become available, but also that omnicidal actors are likely to acquire the rich tapestry of expert knowledge needed to make effective use of this information to produce and disseminate bioweapons.