Gemini is worse than useless when it comes to this sort of thing. It's simultaneously the most confidently-wrong of any AI model and also the most willing to fold to even the smallest amount of criticism.
It will tell you whatever you want to hear, every time, regardless of the actual reality.
For context, the Phi X174 virus they started with only has ~5000 base pairs in its entire genome.
Makes me wonder if the AI actually did any intentional generic engineering at all here, or just spit out as many random variations as it could and then the researchers cherry-picked out the ones that looked like they could be viable.
Yeah, because the ownership class fought tooth-and-nail to corrupt the public's understanding of the name, just like they're doing now with 'AI'. You can't be mad at the bastardization of one term without being mad at the other when the same forces lead to both.
Language is constantly evolving and the meaning of certain terms shifts between eras. Right now everyone understands "AI" to mean the LLM slop factories being forced on the world by a trillion dollars in investment cash. If you want to be upset about that, be upset at Silicon Valley for spending so much of that VC money on marketing to corrupt the public's understanding.
Also, "Luddite" isn't the insult you think it is. The luddites were a pro-labor movement, not an anti-technology movement, and many of the labor protections we have today (despite being under attack by big tech) are owed to their successes.
I have a cat that grooms passive-aggressively. If she doesn't think the other cats are up to her very specific grooming standards, she'll groom them until they are, (whether they like it or not).
Looks like they intentionally priced it just a little less than Opus... probably to give the impression that it's a cheaper alternative without people thinking it's too cheap for a SOTA model and getting suspicious.
As usual, the AI marketing is more sophisticated than the actual technology.
Gemini is worse than useless when it comes to this sort of thing. It's simultaneously the most confidently-wrong of any AI model and also the most willing to fold to even the smallest amount of criticism.
It will tell you whatever you want to hear, every time, regardless of the actual reality.