Dear friends,

2014 is shaping up to be a busy year for the GCR community. It is encouraging that GCR is getting increasing attention, and that leaders of the GCR community are getting increasing recognition for our work. I personally have been honored by several prestigious speaking opportunities and a full profile in a new Scientific American Blogs article Evaluating the Risk of Events That Could End Civilization. The speaking opportunities will send me flying around the world in March, for events in Stockholm and Tokyo. While I am embarrassed about my carbon footprint (the event organizers wouldn’t let me present remotely), I am nonetheless excited for the events.

Some highlights of all this are listed below. This is not a complete list – among other things, there are several upcoming items that have not been publicly announced yet. (Sorry!) So stay tuned for more.

As always, thank you for your interest in our work. We welcome any comments, questions, and criticisms you may have.

Sincerely,
Seth Baum, Executive Director

GCR News Summaries

Robert de Neufville’s latest news summaries are available here: GCR News Summary December 2013 and GCR News Summary January 2014. As always, these summarize recent events across the breadth of GCR topics.

GCRI Homeland Security Project

GCRI has a new project on risks from emerging technologies sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security, titled “Analyzing Current and Future Catastrophic Risks from Emerging-Threat Technologies”. The project team includes Tony Barrett, Seth Baum, and Jun Zhuang. Details available here.

Essay Contests

There are two active essay contests of relevance to GCR:

How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
Website: http://www.fqxi.org/community/essay
Deadline: April 18, 2014
Sponsors: The Foundational Questions Institute, Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation, with media partner Scientific American

Preparing for the Distant Future of Civilization
Website: http://www.bmsis.org/essaycontest/
Deadline: 22 April 2014
Sponsor: Blue Marble Space Institute of Science

2014 GCR Events

Here are some of the many GCR events taking place throughout 2014. Note: GCRI is the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute; CSER is the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and FHI is the University of Oxford Future of Humanity Institute.

January 22-25, Davos: The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting included participation by Martin Rees of CSER – see his WEF interview.

February 6-8, Arizona State University: An event “Evidence, Ideology, and Orthodoxy: Science in the University and the Public Sphere” included a workshop by Huw Price of CSER titled “Towards A New Science of Existential Risk”.

February 26, Cambridge, UK: CSER public lecture Existential Risk: Surviving the 21st Century, with Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and Huw Price.

March 17, Stockholm: An event Emerging Technologies and the Future of Humanity hosted by Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences). A full day of talks with extensive discussion of GCR throughout. Speakers are Seth Baum of GCRI, Anders Sandberg of FHI, Karim Jebari of Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, and Roman Yampolskiy of University of Louisville.

March 24, Tokyo: An event The Futurability Initiatives International Symposium 2014: What humanity in nature ought to be?, hosted by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature. Speakers include Seth Baum of GCRI and Peter Roderick of the Planetary Boundaries Initiative.

March 29, University of Hasselt: TEDxUHasselt will include a talk by Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh of FHI & CSER.

April 11, Amsterdam: An event An Interesting Afternoon ‘The World in 50 Years and How do we get There?’ hosted by the Dutch Future Society will include a talk by Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh of FHI & CSER.

April 23-27, Asheville, North Carolina: Moogfest 2014 will include a talk by Nick Bostrom of FHI.

April 28 – May 9, New York: United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. John Hallam of People For Nuclear Disarmament is hosting a session “Accidental apocalypse: Probabilistic approaches to accidental nuclear war and human survival”, which will include Seth Baum of GCRI, Peter King of University of Sydney, and Dominique Lalanne of Armes Nucléaires STOP.

May 27-29, Scottsdale, Arizona: Second Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy, and Ethics. The deadline for submitting abstracts is March 1.

June 18-20, Miami: A conference Catastrophe Risk Modelling and Data Management will include a talk by Seth Baum of GCRI.

August 18-21, Berlin: Climate Engineering Conference 2014.