February Newsletter: Welcoming Andrea Owe

by | 26 February 2021

Dear friends,

I am delighted to announce a new member of the GCRI team, Research Associate Andrea Owe. Andrea is an environmental and space ethicist based in Oslo. She first started working with GCRI a few years ago while she was a masters student at the University of Oslo’s Centre for Development and the Environment. As a full-time research associate, Andrea will lead a project for GCRI on the ethics of AI and global catastrophic risk. She brings a valuable new perspective to GCRI, and we’re excited to officially welcome her to the team.

Sincerely,
Seth Baum
Executive Director

In Memory of John Garrick

GCRI remembers risk analysis pioneer and GCRI Senior Advisor B. John Garrick, who died late last year of complications from a fall. Garrick helped to develop the field of risk analysis and to inspire GCRI’s own work on risk and decision analysis. Garrick was a friend and a colleague, and will be missed by all of us at GCRI.

GCRI Receives $200k for 2021 Work on AI

GCRI has received a new $200,000 donation to fund work on AI in 2021 from Gordon Irlam. Irlam also made donations in support of our AI project work in 2020 and 2019. We are grateful to Irlam for his generous continuing support of our work.

Artificial General Intelligence Seminar

GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum remotely delivered a virtual seminar on “Risk Analysis and Artificial General Intelligence” as part the 17th Meeting of Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence Special Interest Group on Artificial General Intelligence on February 25.

Author

Recent Publications

Climate Change, Uncertainty, and Global Catastrophic Risk

Climate Change, Uncertainty, and Global Catastrophic Risk

Is climate change a global catastrophic risk? This paper, published in the journal Futures, addresses the question by examining the definition of global catastrophic risk and by comparing climate change to another severe global risk, nuclear winter. The paper concludes that yes, climate change is a global catastrophic risk, and potentially a significant one.

Assessing the Risk of Takeover Catastrophe from Large Language Models

Assessing the Risk of Takeover Catastrophe from Large Language Models

For over 50 years, experts have worried about the risk of AI taking over the world and killing everyone. The concern had always been about hypothetical future AI systems—until recent LLMs emerged. This paper, published in the journal Risk Analysis, assesses how close LLMs are to having the capabilities needed to cause takeover catastrophe.

On the Intrinsic Value of Diversity

On the Intrinsic Value of Diversity

Diversity is a major ethics concept, but it is remarkably understudied. This paper, published in the journal Inquiry, presents a foundational study of the ethics of diversity. It adapts ideas about biodiversity and sociodiversity to the overall category of diversity. It also presents three new thought experiments, with implications for AI ethics.

Climate Change, Uncertainty, and Global Catastrophic Risk

Climate Change, Uncertainty, and Global Catastrophic Risk

Is climate change a global catastrophic risk? This paper, published in the journal Futures, addresses the question by examining the definition of global catastrophic risk and by comparing climate change to another severe global risk, nuclear winter. The paper concludes that yes, climate change is a global catastrophic risk, and potentially a significant one.

Assessing the Risk of Takeover Catastrophe from Large Language Models

Assessing the Risk of Takeover Catastrophe from Large Language Models

For over 50 years, experts have worried about the risk of AI taking over the world and killing everyone. The concern had always been about hypothetical future AI systems—until recent LLMs emerged. This paper, published in the journal Risk Analysis, assesses how close LLMs are to having the capabilities needed to cause takeover catastrophe.

On the Intrinsic Value of Diversity

On the Intrinsic Value of Diversity

Diversity is a major ethics concept, but it is remarkably understudied. This paper, published in the journal Inquiry, presents a foundational study of the ethics of diversity. It adapts ideas about biodiversity and sociodiversity to the overall category of diversity. It also presents three new thought experiments, with implications for AI ethics.