[Linkpost. This presents a way to talk to people about AI that hold overly-romanticized views built on fictional evidence.]

MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is a type of staph bacteria that's become resistant to many of the antibiotics we use. The original staph bacteria that is the ancestor of MRSA was first identified in 1880, but has likely existed in some form for ages. Humans created MRSA first by gathering many sick people in one location for centuries via hospitals, nursing centers, etc—thus creating a staph utopia—and then subjecting the population to extremely harsh selection pressures by attempting to eradicate them over and over via ever-stronger antibiotics. Through many waves of selection events the most antibiotic-resistant bacteria managed to scrape by just long enough to reproduce, getting ever more resistant with every successive wave.

Eventually we created MRSA, a super-strain of staph that exhibits powers we would’ve been astounded by [...]

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