Global Catastrophic Risk Presentations at the 2021 Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting

by | 12 November 2021

Every December, the Society for Risk Analysis holds its Annual Meeting. It is the leading professional conference for risk analysis. GCRI has participated in the Annual Meeting in most years since 2010, as detailed here.

This year, GCRI is involved in three presentations. Each presentation is led by one or more early-career researchers who connected with GCRI via this year’s advising and collaboration program. GCRI is excited to provide these researchers with the opportunity to attend the SRA Annual Meeting and share their research. The research to be presented is excellent and will make a valuable contribution to the Annual Meeting.

The presentation titles are below. Full abstracts are available here.

Title: Military Artificial Intelligence and Global Catastrophic Risk
Authors: Uliana Certan and Seth Baum

Title: Moral Circle Expansion as a Means of Advancing Management of Global Catastrophic Risks
Authors: Manon Gouiran, Dakota Norris, and Seth Baum

Title: Policy Attention to Extreme Catastrophic Risk: The Curious Case of Near-Earth Objects
Authors: Aaron Martin and Seth Baum

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.