Olivia H. Scharfman

Biorisk in Anthropic’s Latest Security Report

Notes on the recent published case studies. Cover painting: Vanitas Still-life, Maria van Oosterwijck, 1668

Sep 14 • O.H. Scharfman

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August 2026

Biosecurity State Capacity

Low-regret policies to strengthen national biosecurity are possible. Cover painting: Ambrogio Lorenzetti, "Effects of Good Government" (1338)

Aug 19 • O.H. Scharfman

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July 2026

Bioweapons as the Optimist's Exception

A response to “Why AI-assisted bioweapons won’t kill you” from Abi Olvera.

Jul 23 • O.H. Scharfman

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June 2026

The Problem With “Doomers” and “Optimists”

Cover painting: Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis by Frederic Leighton.

Jun 21 • O.H. Scharfman

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May 2026

AI Is Not Normal Technology

A longer response to AI as Normal Technology by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor. Cover painting: Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich…

May 21 • O.H. Scharfman

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April 2026

A Quarter Million Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

How Oxytricha uses RNA to build its own genome from 225,000 scrambled pieces. Cover painting: La Seine à la Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, 1888.

Apr 6 • O.H. Scharfman

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March 2026

The Lucretius Problem of Biosecurity

A short response to "Reasons to be pessimistic (and optimistic) on the future of biosecurity."

Mar 18 • O.H. Scharfman

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February 2026

1-Box Smoking Thirders All the Way Down

An addendum to Sleeping Beauties and Boxes on the relevance of those baseline philosophical assumptions to AI. What do the models "think"? Cover: Van…

Feb 10 • O.H. Scharfman

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We Cannot Rely on Keeping Pandora’s Box Closed

A short note in response to Dario Amodei’s new essay, “The Adolescence of Technology.” Cover painting: John William Waterhouse.

Feb 1 • O.H. Scharfman

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January 2026

Sleeping Beauties and Boxes

Notes on how implicit assumptions shape our worldviews.

Jan 1 • O.H. Scharfman

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December 2025

Notes on U.S. Biodefense Spending

Thoughts on U.S. biodefense spending as of the FY2025 request.

Dec 19, 2025 • O.H. Scharfman

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On the Genome as an RNA System

Some thoughts on why RNA is such an exciting frontier in molecular biology.

Dec 13, 2025 • O.H. Scharfman

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