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October Newsletter: Society for Risk Analysis Symposium

Post Date October 03, 2016

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2016 Society for Risk Analysis Meeting

GCRI will lead a symposium on global catastrophic risk at the 2016 meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), December 11-15 in San Diego. SRA is the premier academic and professional society for risk analysis. GCRI has led symposiums at SRA meetings since 2010. The 2016 GCRI symposium features five talks focused on risks from artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons.

Artificial Intelligence

GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum’s paper, “On the promotion of safe and socially beneficial artificial intelligence” has been accepted for publication …

September Newsletter: Media Internship Opportunity

Post Date September 02, 2016

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Author Robert de Neufville

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Dear friends,

GCRI is currently recruiting for a volunteer/intern position on media engagement. We aim both to improve the quality of global catastrophic risk media coverage—including coverage of GCRI—and to help someone launch their career. The ideal fit would be a college student or recent graduate who seeks a career in global catastrophic risk in something media-related such as journalism or social science. Details can be found on GCRI’s website. We would be grateful if you would share the announcement with anyone who might be interested or apply …

August Newsletter: New Director of Communications

Post Date August 09, 2016

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Author Robert de Neufville

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Dear friends,

It is my pleasure to announce that longtime GCRI Associate Robert de Neufville has been promoted to the position of Director of Communications. Robert will oversee GCRI’s website and newsletter, as well as lead a renewed media outreach program. He also joinsTony Barrett, Grant Wilson, and myself on GCRI’s leadership team. Robert’s work is funded through a donation GCRI recently secured from Pattern, an AI company that, like GCRI, has a “geographically decentralized” structure in which workers can live anywhere in the world. We …

February Newsletter: The Year Ahead

Post Date February 29, 2016

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

One year ago, GCRI announced a new direction focused on research to develop the best ways to confront humanity’s gravest threats. Over the past year, we’ve delivered:

* An edited collection, Confronting Future Catastrophic Threats to Humanity, containing ten original research papers including five by GCRI affiliates
* Six additional research papers, making for a total of nine peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters
* 19 popular articles in publications such as the Guardian and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
* Two symposia at the Society …

December Newsletter: A Focus On Solutions

Post Date December 15, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

This holiday season, please consider supporting the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. You can donate online or contact me for further information. At this time, GCRI’s success is limited mainly by its available funding. And nothing beats giving the gift of protection from global catastrophe.

In my view, what’s ultimately important is not the risks themselves but the actions we can take to reduce them. A risk could be very large, but if we can’t do anything about it, then we should focus on something else. …

September Newsletter: AI, Nuclear War, and News Projects

Post Date September 15, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

I’m delighted to announce three new funded projects. Two of them are for risk modeling, on artificial intelligence and nuclear war. These follow directly from our established nuclear war and emerging technologies research projects. The third is for covering current events across the breadth of global catastrophic risk topics. This follows directly from our news summaries. It is an honor to be recognized for our work and to have the opportunity to expand it. Please stay tuned as these projects unfold.

As always, thank you …

June Newsletter: The Winter-Safe Deterrence Controversy

Post Date June 22, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

The last few months have gone well for GCRI. We have several new papers out, two new student affiliates, and some projects in the works that I hope to announce in an upcoming newsletter. Meanwhile, I’d like to share with you about a little controversy we recently found ourselves in.

The controversy surrounds a new research paper of mine titled Winter-safe deterrence: The risk of nuclear winter and its challenge to deterrence. The essence of winter-safe deterrence is to seek options for deterrence that would …

February Newsletter: New Directions For GCRI

Post Date February 17, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

I am delighted to announce important changes in GCRI’s identity and direction. GCRI is now just over three years old. In these years we have learned a lot about how we can best contribute to the issue of global catastrophic risk. Initially, GCRI aimed to lead a large global catastrophic risk community while also performing original research. This aim is captured in GCRI’s original mission statement, to help mobilize the world’s intellectual and professional resources to meet humanity’s gravest threats.

Our community building has been …

January Newsletter: Vienna Conference on Nuclear Weapons

Post Date January 11, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

In December, I had the honor of speaking at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, hosted by the Austrian Foreign Ministry in the lavish Hofburg Palace. The audience was 1,000 people representing 158 national governments plus leading nuclear weapons NGOs, experts, and members of the media.

My talk “What is the risk of nuclear war?” presented core themes from the risk analysis of nuclear war. I explained that each of us is, on average, more likely to die from nuclear war …

November Newsletter: Visiting Colleagues

Post Date November 17, 2014

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Author Seth Baum

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Dear friends,

Over the last two months, I have had the good fortune to be able to visit three close groups of colleagues: the Centre for Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, and the Future of Life Institute in Boston, which has ties to MIT and Harvard. All three organizations are doing great work—work that nicely complements what we at GCRI have been doing. I think the foundations are being laid for a productive and successful community …

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