system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[General Science Fiction] How could a benevolent alien race potentially harm humanity during first contact?

Obviously, a malevolent race actively looking to harm humanity would be awful, but what about a well-meaning alien race?

Is there any way that positive first contact could still hurt us?
gpt
Several ways, there is always the alien virus ravaging the population but cross species viruses are rare, so cross planetary is likely to be even more so. If they did not understand our social structure, they could gift one nation some fantastic piece of technology or scientific breakthrough, humans being humans, we would never share and would try to use it to our advantage and go to war for control over it. They could give us a piece of technology that allows us to become Star faring but there are other species out there that are malevolent and we then attract attention to ourselves. They could barter with us in good faith and we don't understand what we are trading away, say all of our hydrogen or something and it has catastrophic consequences, or we could misunderstand their culture and let's say they conclude every contact by butchering and eating our delegation as a sign of respect.