Book Review: Only One Chance

Post Date August 20, 2014
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Review of: Philippe Grandjean. Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development – and How to Protect the Brains of the Next Generation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Humans have lived with chemical pollution for thousands of years, but the recent proliferation of industrial chemicals poses novel threats. In the new book Only One Chance, distinguished environmental health researcher Philippe Grandjean argues for special attention to developmental neurotoxicology, i.e. to the effects of chemical pollution on the developing human brain …

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Deepwater Horizon and the Law of the Sea: Was the Cure Worse than the Disease?

Post Date January 31, 2014
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The number 4.9 million is commonly known as the number of barrels of crude oil that entered the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Less known, but perhaps equally disconcerting, is the number 1.7 million—the number of gallons of Corexit, a toxic dispersant used to mitigate oil spills, that was also released into the Gulf of Mexico. Some observers claim that Corexit spared …

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The Ethics of Global Catastrophic Risk from Dual-Use Bioengineering

Post Date January 04, 2014
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Category ethics, publications

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Dual-use technologies are technologies that can be used in both beneficial and harmful ways. Some technologies produced through biological engineering (bioengineering) are dual-use. Of all the possible harms from dual-use technologies, global catastrophic risk is a significant concern. Global catastrophic risks (GCRs) are risks of events that could significantly harm or even destroy civilization at the global scale. This paper discusses ethical issues raised by those bioengineered technologies that pose a GCR. The paper …

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New Review Of AI Risk Book Our Final Invention

Post Date October 14, 2013
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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.

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New Article On Syria And Nuclear War

Post Date September 21, 2013
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Quick FYI – I have a new article out at Huffington Post: Taming the Gigaton Gorilla: Using Syria Diplomacy to Help Avoid U.S.-Russia Nuclear War. The article discusses the current diplomatic situation in Syria in terms of global catastrophic risk, in particular US-Russia nuclear war. The basic ideas are (1) the Syria situation should be approached mainly in terms of global catastrophic risk, instead of in terms of Syria itself, and (2) opportunities may exist for diplomacy regarding Syria to improve US-Russia relations so as …

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Minimizing Global Catastrophic and Existential Risks from Emerging Technologies Through International Law

Post Date July 01, 2013
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Category law & policy, publications

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Mankind is rapidly developing “emerging technologies” in the fields of bioengineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence that have the potential to solve humanity’s biggest problems, such as curing all disease, extending human life, or mitigating massive environmental problems like climate change. However, if these emerging technologies are misused or have an unintended negative effect, the consequences could be enormous, potentially resulting in serious, global damage to humans (known as “global catastrophic harm”) …

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Analyzing and Reducing the Risks of Inadvertent Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia

Post Date June 28, 2013
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Inadvertent nuclear war as defined in this paper occurs when one nation mistakenly concludes that it is under attack and launches nuclear weapons in what it believes to be a counterattack. A US-Russia nuclear war would be a major global catastrophe since these countries still possess thousands of nuclear weapons. Despite the end of the Cold War, the risk remains. This paper develops a detailed mathematical “fault tree” …

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New Magazine Article ‘Making The Universe A Better Place’

Post Date June 28, 2013
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Category astrobiology, ethics, publications

One more quick announcement. I have a short magazine article Making The Universe A Better Place in the new issue of Current Exchange/Technophilic Magazine. (The link is for the full issue. There’s no direct link to my article yet.) The article presents an overview of the ethics of global catastrophic risk as it relates to astrobiology. Technophilic is a magazine for science and engineering students, and so the article tells my personal story of how I transitioned from an engineering grad student to someone active …

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New Paper: Ethics & Dual-Use Bioengineering

Post Date June 28, 2013
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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 …

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New Paper: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Post Date May 03, 2013
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GCRI has a new academic paper out. Deepwater Horizon and the Law of the Sea: Was the cure worse than the disease?, by Grant Wilson, has been accepted for publication in a law journal to be determined. This paper analyzes the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in relation to international law. The paper focuses on the use of the oil dispersant Corexit, suggesting that this may have been in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The paper also explores …

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