The rationale for "virus hunting" is to create advance vaccines. However, you cannot safely test a vaccine for a novel, deadly pathogen on healthy humans. This makes the knowledge unactionable for prevention, while creating immense risk by bringing dangerous pathogens into leaky labs and publicizing their existence.
The Deep Vision project, which had the potential to "cancel civilization," was conceived by well-intentioned officials at USAID, not malicious actors. This reveals that catastrophic risk can emerge from groups trying to solve problems, who are completely blind to the dangerous second-order effects of their work.
Deep Vision's plan to publish the genomes of deadly viruses would effectively give the "killing power of a nuclear arsenal" to an estimated 30,000 unvetted individuals with synthetic biology skills. In the bio-age, openly publishing certain information can be a greater security threat than physical weapons.
The successful campaign to stop the high-risk Deep Vision project was not a top-down decision. It involved a loose, cross-partisan alliance initiated by podcasters and thinkers, then actioned by figures ranging from Chelsea Clinton to Senators Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, demonstrating the power of quiet, multi-pronged pressure.
A malevolent actor using a published list of deadly viruses could release multiple pathogens at once from many locations. This would overwhelm medical systems and, most critically, cause societal collapse when essential frontline workers refuse to risk their lives and families for their jobs, shutting down the supply of food, power, and law enforcement.
A core flaw in virus hunting is moving pathogens from isolated natural environments to labs in dense population centers. Despite security ratings, all categories of labs have a history of leaks. The lack of a uniform reporting system means we don't know the failure rate, making labs a riskier container than nature.