August Newsletter: Long-Term Trajectories

Post Date August 15, 2018
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

This month I am proud to announce a new paper, “Long-Term Trajectories of Human Civilization“. The paper calls for attention to the fate of human civilization over time scales of millions, billions, or trillions of years into the future. While most attention goes to nearer-term phenomena, the long-term can be profoundly important to present-day decision-making. For example, one major issue the paper examines is the fate of global catastrophe survivors. How well they fare is a central factor in whether people today should focus …

Read More »

May Newsletter: Molecular Nanotechnology

Post Date May 22, 2018
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

It has been a productive month for GCRI, with new papers by several of our affiliates. Here, I would like to highlight one by Steven Umbrello and myself, on the topic of molecular nanotechnology, also known as atomically precise manufacturing (APM).

At present, APM exists only in a crude form, such as the work recognized by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. However, it may be able to revolutionize manufacturing, making it inexpensive and easy to produce a wide range of goods, resulting in what …

Read More »

December Newsletter: Year in Review

Post Date December 27, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

It has been another productive year for GCRI. Though we have a limited budget, we’ve made major contributions to global catastrophic risk research. Here are some highlights:

* GCRI hosted its largest-ever series of symposia on global catastrophic risk at the 2017 Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) conference, prompting SRA to encourage us to lead the formation of an official global catastrophic risk group within SRA.

* GCRI affiliates presented at numerous other events throughout the year, including dedicated catastrophic risk events at UCLA and Gothenburg.

* …

Read More »

November Newsletter: Survey of AI Projects

Post Date November 16, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

This month we are announcing a new paper, A Survey of Artificial General Intelligence Projects for Ethics, Risk, and Policy. This is more than the usual research paper: it’s 99 pages pulling together several months of careful work. It documents and analyzes what’s going on right now in artificial general intelligence (AGI) R&D in terms that are useful for risk management, policy, and related purposes. Essentially, this is what we need to know about AGI R&D to make a difference on the issue.

AGI is AI …

Read More »

September Newsletter: 2017 Society for Risk Analysis Meeting

Post Date September 07, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

Each year, GCRI hosts sessions on global catastrophic risk at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis, which is the leading academic and professional society for all things risk. This year, we have gotten three full sessions accepted for the meeting, our most ever. SRA is competitive and we are honored to have three sessions.

Likewise, for those of you who are interested in SRA but haven’t come to the meeting before, this would be a good year to come. SRA has a …

Read More »

February Newsletter: Outlook For 2017—GCRI & US Politics

Post Date February 06, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

One year ago, I described GCRI’s success with academic and popular publishing and speaking, and noted that this productivity could not be sustained on the small budget we had. Over the past year, we have focused more on fundraising, though I regret with only limited success. It’s enough to keep our doors open, but not enough to perform at high capacity.

But enough about us. What’s more important is that, over the past year, the world has changed. The United States has elected a wholly unusual …

Read More »

December Newsletter: The US Election & Global Catastrophic Risk

Post Date December 10, 2016
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

The recent US election offers a vivid reminder of how large and seemingly unlikely events can and do sometimes occur. Just as we cannot assume that elections will continue to be won by normal politicians, we also cannot assume that humanity will continue to avoid global catastrophe.

The outcome of this election has many implications for global catastrophic risk, which I outline in a new article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. To my eyes, the election increases the importance of nuclear weapons risk …

Read More »

October Newsletter: Society for Risk Analysis Symposium

Post Date October 03, 2016
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

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 …

Read More »

GCRI Experts Featured In Science Magazine

Post Date July 27, 2016
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category media coverage

GCRI’s Seth Baum and Dave Denkenberger are featured in an article in Science Magazine titled “Here’s how the world could end—and what we can do about it”.

Read More »

September 2013 Newsletter

Post Date September 05, 2013
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category newsletter

Dear friends,

Seth Baum is out of the office now, so I am sending the newsletter in his absence. This month, I would like to talk a bit about geoengineering. Geoengineering is the large-scale manipulation of the climate, particularly to alleviate the effects of climate change (also called “climate engineering”). Geoengineering epitomizes how many distinct global catastrophic risks have a dynamic relationship. For example, in one possible scenario, society decides to lower the planet’s temperature by engaging in stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI)—a technology that essentially blankets …

Read More »
« Older Entries