According to 80,000 Hoursâ profiles on nuclear war and catastrophic pandemics, it looks like scale, neglectedness and solvability play similar roles:
The scale of nuclear war might be 10 % that of catastrophic pandemics:
âWe think the direct existential risk from nuclear war (i.e. not including secondary effects) is less than 0.01%. The indirect existential risk seems around 10 times higherâ. So existential nuclear risk is less than 0.1 %, which might be interpreted as 0.01 %?
âOverall, we think the risk [from âexistential biological catastropheâ] is around 0.1%, and very likely to be greater than 0.01%, but we havenât thought about this in detailâ.
Catastrophic pandemics might be 3 times as neglected as nuclear war:
âThis issue is not as neglected as most other issues we prioritise. Current spending is between $1 billion and $10 billion per year (quality-adjusted).1â So maybe 3 billion (geometric mean)?
It sounds like they think reducing the risk from catastrophic pandemics is more tractable:
âMaking progress on nuclear security seems somewhat tractable. While many routes to progress face significant political controversy, there may also be some more neglected ways to reduce this risk.2â
âThere are promising existing approaches to improving biosecurity, including both developing technology that could reduce these risks (e.g. better bio-surveillance), and working on strategy and policy to develop plans to prevent and mitigate biological catastrophes.â
So you may be right that the level of risk is not a major driver for nuclear war not being a core area. However, I guess other organisations believe the bio existential risk to be higher than 80,000 Hours, whereas few will have higher estimates for nuclear existential risk.
Thanks for asking, Jeff!
According to 80,000 Hoursâ profiles on nuclear war and catastrophic pandemics, it looks like scale, neglectedness and solvability play similar roles:
The scale of nuclear war might be 10 % that of catastrophic pandemics:
âWe think the direct existential risk from nuclear war (i.e. not including secondary effects) is less than 0.01%. The indirect existential risk seems around 10 times higherâ. So existential nuclear risk is less than 0.1 %, which might be interpreted as 0.01 %?
âOverall, we think the risk [from âexistential biological catastropheâ] is around 0.1%, and very likely to be greater than 0.01%, but we havenât thought about this in detailâ.
Catastrophic pandemics might be 3 times as neglected as nuclear war:
âThis issue is not as neglected as most other issues we prioritise. Current spending is between $1 billion and $10 billion per year (quality-adjusted).1â So maybe 3 billion (geometric mean)?
âAs a result, our quality-adjusted estimate suggests that current spending is around $1 billion per year. (For comparison with other significant risks, we estimate that hundreds of billions per year are spent on climate change, while tens of millions are spent on reducing risks from AI.)â
It sounds like they think reducing the risk from catastrophic pandemics is more tractable:
âMaking progress on nuclear security seems somewhat tractable. While many routes to progress face significant political controversy, there may also be some more neglected ways to reduce this risk.2â
âThere are promising existing approaches to improving biosecurity, including both developing technology that could reduce these risks (e.g. better bio-surveillance), and working on strategy and policy to develop plans to prevent and mitigate biological catastrophes.â
So you may be right that the level of risk is not a major driver for nuclear war not being a core area. However, I guess other organisations believe the bio existential risk to be higher than 80,000 Hours, whereas few will have higher estimates for nuclear existential risk.