Dear friends,
One reason it is important to analyze the global catastrophic risks quantitatively is that some decisions involve tradeoffs between them. An action may reduce one risk while increasing another. It’s important to know whether the decrease in the one risk is large enough to offset the increase in the other.
This month, we announce a new paper that presents a detailed analysis of one such decision: the use of nuclear explosives to deflect Earthbound asteroids away. Nuclear deflection is an option under active consideration by the asteroid risk community, but it may increase the risk of nuclear war or of other violent conflict. The paper does not reach a clear conclusion on whether nuclear deflection would bring a net risk reduction, due mainly to uncertainty in the risk of violent conflict. Instead, the paper’s value comes from laying out the risk-risk tradeoff and making progress on the analysis. The paper also presents a model of global catastrophic risk-risk tradeoff analysis that can be adapted for other tradeoffs between global catastrophic risks.
The paper is “Risk-Risk Tradeoff Analysis of Nuclear Explosives for Asteroid Deflection”. It is published in Risk Analysis, the flagship journal of the Society for Risk Analysis.
Sincerely,
Seth Baum
Executive Director
Artificial Intelligence
GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum gave a talk titled “Intermediate-Term Artificial Intelligence & Society” at the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence (CHAI) in Berkeley, CA on June 26.
Emerging Technology Risk
GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum participated via remote connection in a panel discussion with Christopher Nathan on “Cross-cutting Lessons About Risk in Emerging Technology” hosted by University of Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre on June 6.
Grants and Funding
GCRI has received an $85,000 grant from the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI). We are grateful for this support.
Open Call for Advisees and Collaborators
GCRI is still accepting applications for its new advising and collaboration program. The response to our call for advisees and collaborators has been strong. Applicants should email GCRI Director of Communications Robert de Neufville (robert@gcrinstitute) a short description of their background and interests, what they hope to get out of their interaction with GCRI, the city they are based in, and either a resume/CV or a link to a professional website.
Planetary Defense
GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum has a paper forthcoming in Risk Analysis titled “Risk-Risk Tradeoff Analysis of Nuclear Explosives for Asteroid Deflection”. The paper uses risk-risk tradeoff analysis to assess whether the nuclear deflection of asteroids would result in a net increase or net decrease in risk.
Society for Risk Analysis Meeting
GCRI is hosting a session on Global Catastrophic Risks at the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) 2019 annual meeting December 8-12 in Arlington, VA. SRA is the leading professional society for all types of risk. GCRI Director of Research Tony Barrett is chairing the session. GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum will contribute a talk titled “Global Catastrophic Risk Analysis” and GCRI Special Advisor for Government Affairs Jared Brown will contribute a talk titled “US Policy for Reducing Global Catastrophic Risk”.
