Dear friends,

One of the great features of being part of a wider community of scholars and professionals working on global catastrophic risk is the chance to learn from and build on work that other groups are doing. This month, we announce a paper of mine that builds on an excellent recent paper by Simon Beard, Thomas Rowe, James Fox. The Beard et al. paper surveys the methods used to quantify the probability of existential catastrophe (which is roughly synonymous with global catastrophe).

My paper comments on these methods and the general challenge of quantifying the probability. Both papers serve to advance the methodology of quantifying existential and global catastrophic risks. This is an important topic because many decisions could depend on how the risks are quantified, but it is also a challenging topic because these are difficult risks to quantify. The two papers offer some guidance on how to meet this important challenge and more effectively address existential and global catastrophic risk.

The paper is Quantifying the probability of existential catastrophe: A reply to Beard et al., published in Futures.

Sincerely,
Seth Baum, Executive Director