LLMs dramatically amplify what untrained people can accomplish in specialized fields like biology, raising both opportunity and safety concerns.
Researchers tested whether LLMs actually help non-experts do biology tasks better than using the internet alone. They found novices with LLM access were 4x more accurate than those without, and sometimes outperformed trained experts. However, users weren't always getting the best results from the models, and most found it easy to get sensitive biosecurity information despite safeguards.