The search space of biological organisms been well explored. It's unlikely that one will develop which is vastly more dangerous than the ones which already exist. The same cannot be said for robots/AI.
> The search space of biological organisms been well explored.
Not at all true. The space of possible biological organisms is searched in a highly nonuniform manner by evolution, and the human search strategy is fundamentally different. It's overwhelmingly likely that there competitive human-constructible organisms which could never be produced by evolution in the past 4 billion years.
This is true if you are discussing creating organisms which are highly different from existing ones. _delirium was discussing genetic modifications which are simply tweaks to existing organisms.
There is no reason to believe that golden rice will evolve in any significantly different manner than ordinary rice. In contrast, AI will evolve via a mechanism which is unprecedented.
I imagine that this has already happened back when countries had active biowarfare programs: what if someone clones a mix of potent neurotoxins into bacteria or fungi? Or mosquitos?
What if we create bacteria that can digest anything, survive in environmental extrema, sporulate, and kill off competing strains? The grey goo scenario comes to mind.
Chemical and biological state space is infinite. There is much room for good, but also for bad. Misuse of biology is much more dangerous in the short term than AI.