Iām glad you mentioned information hazards in this context. Personally, I felt a bit uncomfortable reading the engineered pandemics section listing an array of obstacles to be surmounted to causing extinction, and ways they might be surmounted.
I agree that itās quite an unfortunate situation that concerns about information hazards make it harder to openly debate levels of risks from various sources and related topics (at least within the biorisk space). Iām also generally quite in favour of people being able to poke and prod at prominent or common views, think this post seems to have done a good job of that in certain parts (although I disagree with quite a few specific points made), and would feel uncomfortable if people felt unable to write anything like this for information hazards reasons.
But Iād personally really hope that, before publishing this, the author at least ran the engineered pandemics section by one person who is fairly familiar with the biorisk or x-risk space, explicitly asking them for their views on how wise it would be to publish it in the current form. Such a person might be able to provide info on where the contents of that to-do list of doom are on a spectrum from:
already very widely known (such that publication may not do that much harm)
surprisingly novel, or currently receiving little attention from the most concerning actors (who may not have especially high creativity or expertise)
(Thereās more discussion of the fraught topic of info hazards in these sources.)
In Kevin Esveltās recent EAGx talk, he provides a lot of interesting thoughts on the matter of information hazards in the bio space. It seems that Esvelt would likewise hope that the engineered pandemics section had at least been run by a knowledgeable and trustworthy person first, or that Esvelt might actually express stronger concerns than I did.
For people low on time, the last bit, from 40:30 onwards, is perhaps especially relevant.
Iām glad you mentioned information hazards in this context. Personally, I felt a bit uncomfortable reading the engineered pandemics section listing an array of obstacles to be surmounted to causing extinction, and ways they might be surmounted.
I agree that itās quite an unfortunate situation that concerns about information hazards make it harder to openly debate levels of risks from various sources and related topics (at least within the biorisk space). Iām also generally quite in favour of people being able to poke and prod at prominent or common views, think this post seems to have done a good job of that in certain parts (although I disagree with quite a few specific points made), and would feel uncomfortable if people felt unable to write anything like this for information hazards reasons.
But Iād personally really hope that, before publishing this, the author at least ran the engineered pandemics section by one person who is fairly familiar with the biorisk or x-risk space, explicitly asking them for their views on how wise it would be to publish it in the current form. Such a person might be able to provide info on where the contents of that to-do list of doom are on a spectrum from:
already very widely known (such that publication may not do that much harm)
surprisingly novel, or currently receiving little attention from the most concerning actors (who may not have especially high creativity or expertise)
(Thereās more discussion of the fraught topic of info hazards in these sources.)
In Kevin Esveltās recent EAGx talk, he provides a lot of interesting thoughts on the matter of information hazards in the bio space. It seems that Esvelt would likewise hope that the engineered pandemics section had at least been run by a knowledgeable and trustworthy person first, or that Esvelt might actually express stronger concerns than I did.
For people low on time, the last bit, from 40:30 onwards, is perhaps especially relevant.