Dear friends,
We have some exciting and important news this month. As of 29 July, GCRI is now part of the fiscal sponsorship organization Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE). SEE is an established fiscal sponsor organization based in Los Angeles. They sponsor about 100 projects from around the country across a wide range of issues. Joining SEE gives GCRI access to some great resources and also gives us 501c3 status for our fundraising. The switch also means we’re no longer part of Blue Marble Space (BMS). While the switch was important for us, we still think BMS is an excellent up-and-coming organization. And I personally will remain active in BMS, given my own ongoing work on astrobiology and related topics.
For further details on the switch to SEE, please see this post on the GCRI blog.
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
July GCR News Summary
Robert de Neufville presents our fifth monthly news summary. This month covers recent developments in AI; a C.I.A. geoengineering project; US-Russia tensions; pandemic preparedness; MERS and H7N9 updates; antibiotic resistance; and more.
For the full summary, please see GCR News Summary July 2013.
As always, if you know of something that may be worth including in the next news summary, please post it in the comment thread of the current summary, or send it via email to Grant Wilson (grant@gcrinstitute.org).
SRA 2013 GCR Sessions Announced
GCRI is hosting two sessions featuring ten talks at the 2013 Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, which will be 8-11 December in Baltimore. Full session details are available here. If you will be at the SRA meeting, we encourage you to join the sessions.
Updates To Organization & Conferences Directories
Two of GCRI’s resources have recently been updated. The organization directory now lists 130 organizations – see summary of updates. The conferences directory now has 71 conferences and has also been updated per those conferences that occurred since the previous update – see summary of updates.
Baum Interviewed At Arup Connect
GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum is featured in an interview at Arup Connect, the online magazine of Arup, a multinational engineering company.
Past Online Lectures
On 25 July, Miles Brundage of Arizona State University’s Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program presented on artificial intelligence risk. The talk was titled ‘A Social Science Perspective on Global Catastrophic Risk Debates: The Case of Artificial General Intelligence’. A full summary is available here.
On 1 August, Tim Maher of GCRI presented on ambient intelligence. The talk was titled ‘Ambient Intelligence: Implications for Global Environmental Change and Totalitarianism Risk’ and featured discussants Maurits Kaptein and Arden Rowell. A full summary is available here.
Upcoming Online Lectures
To be held via Skype or equivalent. RSVP required via email to Seth Baum (seth@gcrinstitute.org). For assistance with time zones, please see GCRI’s time zones resource.
15 August:
Topic: Ethics
Speaker: Nick Beckstead, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
Title: On The Overwhelming Importance Of Shaping The Far Future
Abstract: See the Pre-Lecture Announcement
22 August:
Topic: Catastrophe Recovery
Speaker: Dave Denkenberger, engineer at Ecova
Title: Feeding Everyone: Solving the Food Crisis in Event of Global Catastrophes that Kill the Sun or Crops
Abstract: See the Pre-Lecture Announcement
September (exact date TBD):
Topic: Geoengineering & International Law
Speaker: Grant Wilson, GCRI
Title: Murky Waters: An Analysis of Ambiguous International Law and Ocean Fertilization
