Existential risks
- Policy and research ideas to reduce existential risk - 80,000 Hours (5 mins.)
- The Vulnerable World Hypothesis - Future of Humanity Institute - Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default. (45 mins.)
Criticism
- Democratizing Risk: In Search of a Methodology to Study Existential Risk (50 mins.)
- A critical review of “The Precipice” (maybe come back to the “Unaligned Artificial Intelligence” section next week, once you’ve engaged with the argument for AI risk).
Biosecurity
- Reducing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks Problem Profile - 80,000 Hours (1 hour)
- The Apollo Report
- Global Catastrophic Risks Chapter 20 - Biotechnology and Biosecurity Overview from ~15 years ago on how biotechnological power is increasing exponentially, as measured by the time needed to synthesize a certain sequence of DNA. This has important implications for biosecurity. (1 hour)
- Open until dangerous: the case for reforming research to reduce global catastrophic risk (Video - 50 mins.)
- Dr. Cassidy Nelson on the twelve best ways to stop the next pandemic (andlimit COVID-19) 80k podcast interview (podcast - 2.5 hours)
- Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race 80k podcast interview (podcast - 2 hours)
- Article on information hazards in biotechnology (15 mins.)
- Using Export Controls to Reduce Biorisk (6 mins.)
- Lynn Klotz on improving the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) (10 mins.)
- Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse? (8 mins.)
Climate Change
- Climate Change Problem Profile - 80,000 Hours - An analysis of the worst risks of climate change, some of the most promising ways to reduce them, and how to prioritize climate change against other problems. (30 mins.)
- Effective Environmentalism (Website)
Nuclear security
- Daniel Ellsberg on the creation of nuclear doomsday machines - Daniel Ellsberg on the institutional insanity that maintains large nuclear arsenals, and a practical plan for dismantling them (Podcast - 2 hours 45 mins.)
- List of nuclear close calls - Wikipedia - A description of the thirteen events in human history so far that could have led to an unintended nuclear detonation (5 mins.)
- Risks from Nuclear weapons - A series of posts exploring the extent to which nuclear risk reduction is a top priority, and the most effective ways to reduce nuclear risk.
- Nuclear security - Brief summary + relevant articles on the EA Forum
Global governance and international peace
- Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on 8 years of combating WMD terrorism - an interview with Bonnie Jenkins, Ambassador at the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration, where she worked for eight years as Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. (Podcast - 1 hour 40 mins.)
- Modeling Great Power conflict as an existential risk factor (40 mins.)
- Why effective altruists should care about global governance - Because global catastrophic risks transcend national borders, we need new global solutions that our current systems of global governance struggle to deliver. (Video - 20 mins.)
- Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap (Book)