September Newsletter: Media Internship Opportunity

by | 2 September 2016

Dear friends,

GCRI is currently recruiting for a volunteer/intern position on media engagement. We aim both to improve the quality of global catastrophic risk media coverage—including coverage of GCRI—and to help someone launch their career. The ideal fit would be a college student or recent graduate who seeks a career in global catastrophic risk in something media-related such as journalism or social science. Details can be found on GCRI’s website. We would be grateful if you would share the announcement with anyone who might be interested or apply yourself if you feel you would be a good fit for the position.

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

GCR News Summary

Our news summaries cover events across the breadth of GCR topics, including nuclear disarmament, climate change, artificial intelligence, and infectious diseases. Here are is our summary for months of June and July.

Artificial Intelligence

GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum was appointed to the Advisory Board of the journal AI & Society. AI & Society is an interdisciplinary journal focused on societal issues related to artificial intelligence including the design, use, management, and policy of information, communications and new media technologies, with a particular emphasis on cultural, social, cognitive, economic, ethical, and philosophical implications.

Seth Baum also appeared with OpenAI’s Dario Amodei on a Future of Life Institute podcast on concrete problems in AI safety. Baum and Amodei talked about how to get AI researchers to work on safety issues even when they are not concerned about future superintelligence risk.

Nuclear War Risk

Seth Baum was interviewed about nuclear war risk for the latest Global Challenges Foundation Quarterly Report.

Popular Articles

GCRI Associate Kaitlin Butler was interviewed for an article about online oil and gas leasing auctions in FUSION, which was also republished in Wired. Butler told FUSION that “moving auctions online makes it easier for corporations to ignore frontline communities,” and “shields the fossil fuel industry from the voices and concerns of the communities who are directly impacted by the extraction projects and by climate disruption.”

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.