FLI Artificial Superintelligence Project

Post Date July 01, 2015
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category announcement, emerging technologies

I am writing to announce that GCRI has received a grant from the Future of Life Institute, with funding provided by Elon Musk and the Open Philanthropy Project. The official announcement is here and the full list of awardees is here.

GCRI’s project team includes Tony Barrett, Roman Yampolskiy, and myself. Here is the project title and summary:

Evaluation of Safe Development Pathways for Artificial Superintelligence

Some experts believe that computers could eventually become a lot smarter than humans are. They call it artificial superintelligence, or ASI. If …

Read More »

DHS Emerging Technologies Project

Post Date January 29, 2014
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category emerging technologies, law & policy

I am writing to announce a new GCRI project on risks from emerging technologies. The project is sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security under its Science & Technology Directorate Centers of Excellence, through the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), which is based at the University of Southern California.

The project’s Principal Investigator is GCRI Director of Research Tony Barrett. Contributions are also coming from our colleague Jun Zhuang, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at SUNY-Buffalo, and …

Read More »

KVA Emerging Technologies Event

Post Date January 21, 2014
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category emerging technologies, events

On 17 March 2014, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien (KVA, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) is hosting an event Emerging technologies and the future of humanity. I will give a talk “The great downside dilemma for risky emerging technologies”, loosely based on themes from my recent paper Double catastrophe: Intermittent stratospheric geoengineering induced by societal collapse. Usually I try to avoid travel like this, but this is a good event and they wouldn’t let me present remotely. Here’s my abstract:

The great downside dilemma for risky emerging technologies
Many …

Read More »

New Review Of AI Risk Book Our Final Invention

Post Date October 14, 2013
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category emerging technologies, publications

Quick fyi – I have a review of Our Final Invention by James Barrat. The review is titled Our Final Invention: Is AI the Defining Issue for Humanity? and has been published at Scientific American Blogs. There is also a reprint at Yahoo News. It’s a very readable book, a good introduction to AI risk for people new to the topic, but also something that experts will also learn something from.

Read More »

Grant Wilson Gives Lecture on International Law for Geoengineering

Post Date September 25, 2013
Comments 1 Comment
Author
Category emerging technologies, environmental change, law & policy, online lectures

On Wednesday 18 September, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Grant Wilson entitled ‘Murky Waters: Ambiguous International Law for Ocean Fertilization and Other Geoengineering’. Wilson is GCRI’s Deputy Director and a recent graduate of Lewis & Clark Law School, where he specialized in international law regarding emerging technologies and the environment. The lecture is based on a draft paper of the same title.

Emphasis on geoengineering comes from increasingly dire projections of climate change, amounting to a significant global catastrophic risk. The international community’s failure to …

Read More »

Grant Wilson To Deliver Online Lecture On Geoengineering International Law 18 September

Post Date August 21, 2013
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category emerging technologies, environmental change, law & policy, online lectures

This is the pre-event announcement for an online lecture by Grant Wilson, GCRI’s Deputy Director. The lecture is based on a draft paper of the same title.

Here is the full talk info:

Murky Waters: Ambiguous International Law for Ocean Fertilization and Other Geoengineering
Wednesday, 18 September 2013, 17:00 GMT (10:00 Los Angeles, 13:00 New York, 18:00 London)
To be held online via Skype. RSVP required by email to Seth Baum (seth [at] gcrinstitute.org). Space is limited.

Abstract:

In July 2012, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) dumped about 100 tons …

Read More »

Tim Maher Gives Lecture on Ambient Intelligence

Post Date August 06, 2013
Comments 2 Comments
Author
Category emerging technologies, ethics, governance failure, law & policy, online lectures

On Thursday 1 August, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Tim Maher entitled ‘Ambient Intelligence: Implications for Global Environmental Change and Totalitarianism Risk’ (see the pre-lecture announcement). Maher is a recent graduate of Bard College’s M.S. program in Climate Science and Policy and a GCRI Research Assistant. The lecture is based on Maher’s M.S. thesis ‘Ambient Intelligence and Ambient Persuasive Technology: Sustainability and Threats to Autonomy’ [1]. The lecture included discussants Maurits Kaptein, Assistant Professor of Statistics and Research Methods at the University of Tilburg …

Read More »

Miles Brundage Gives Online Lecture on Artificial General Intelligence

Post Date July 30, 2013
Comments 2 Comments
Author
Category emerging technologies, online lectures

On Thursday 25 July, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Miles Brundage entitled ‘A Social Science Perspective on Global Catastrophic Risk Debates: The Case of Artificial General Intelligence’. (See the pre-lecture announcement.) Brundage is a PhD student at Arizona State University’s Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, where he is affiliated with the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO). He also spent two years at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, which funds promising early stage energy technologies.

Brundage’s lecture described how …

Read More »

New Paper: Ethics & Dual-Use Bioengineering

Post Date June 28, 2013
Comments 1 Comment
Author
Category emerging technologies, ethics, law & policy, publications

GCRI has a new academic paper out. The ethics of global catastrophic risk from dual-use bioengineering, by Seth Baum and Grant Wilson, has been accepted for publication in Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine. The paper was written for a talk of the same title presented at the 7th Annual International Conference on Ethical Issues In Biomedical Engineering.

The paper discusses ethics and law issues raised by dual-use bioengineering. Dual-use technologies are technologies with both beneficial and harmful applications. Bioengineered technologies can be both very beneficial …

Read More »

Tim Maher To Deliver Online Lecture On Ambient Intelligence & GCR 11 July With Discussants Howe, Kaptein & Rowell

Post Date June 28, 2013
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category emerging technologies, environmental change, ethics, governance failure, law & policy, online lectures

This is the pre-event announcement for an online lecture by Tim Maher, GCRI Research Assistant and recent graduate of Bard College’s M.S. program in Climate Science and Policy

Here is the full talk info:

Ambient Intelligence: Implications for Global Environmental Change and Totalitarianism Risk
Thursday 11 July, 17:00 GMT (10:00 Los Angeles, 13:00 New York, 18:00 London)
To be held online via Skype or equivalent. RSVP required by email to Seth Baum (seth [at] gcrinstitute.org). Space is limited.

The lecture will feature three discussants:
Peter Howe, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Yale Project on …

Read More »
« Older Entries