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Have been following these maps for a while. Would be interested in a map of interventions on some matter like global warming, or even more ideally some assessment of the importance / neglectedness / tractability of interventions on some futuristic issue.
Thanks for your interest—I would be happy to create a map based on public interest, but I need more input.
The map of intervention in global warming is in this post. )) Please clarify what do you mean.
Another map of x-risks prevention in general also about interventions.
All published maps are linked here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/sample-page/
Some future maps are in different draft stages:
AI as an instrument for life extension
Fermi paradox
Personal identity
Mind improvement
Aging theories
Thanks!
My question is whether you could indicate which areas of a map you think are fruitful areas to try to work on. It may be a bit intimidating to see the size of a field like global catastrophic risks. So it seems like it would be helpful to accompany some maps with a scheme for prioritizing the important areas. e.g. if people could know that safe ai engineering is a useful area for reducing gcrs (because not many people are trying that thing) but climate change activism is not (because it’s a really crowded area).
I realize this would be a big additional project but I am curious whether you’ve considered the prioritization problem as relevant to your mapping project.
I will think about it
My Identity map is on. http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nuc/identity_map/
So, some ideas for further research, that is fields which a person could undertake if he want to make an impact in the field of x-risks. So it is carrier advises. For many of them I don’t have special background or needed personal qualities.
Legal research of international law, including work with UN and governments. Goal: prepare an international law and a panel for x-risks prevention. (Legal education is needed)
Convert all information about x-risks (including my maps) in large wikipedia style database. Some master of communication to attract many contributors and balance their actions is needed.
Create computer model of all global risks, which will be able to calculate their probabilities depending of different assumptions. Evolve this model into world model with elements of AI and connect it to monitoring and control systems.
Large research is safety of bio-risks, which will attract professional biologists.
Promoter, who could attract funding for different research without oversimplufication of risks and overhyping solutions. He may be also a political activist.
I think that in AI safety we are already have too many people, so some work to integrate their results is needed.
Teacher. A professor who will be able to teach a course in x-risks research for student and prepare many new researchers. May be youtube lectures.
Artist, who will be able to attract attention to the topic without sensationalism and bad memes.
Extra risks from geoengineering:
Cause additional climate problems (ie. it doesn’t just uniformly cool planet. I recall seeing a simulation somewhere where climate change + geoengineering did not equal no change, but instead significantly changed rainfall patterns).
Global coordination problems (who decides how much geoengineering to do, compensation for downside, etc.). This could cause a significant increase in international tensions, plausibly war.
Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer has some specific negative scenarios (for climate change + geoengineering) https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Wars-Fight-Survival-Overheats/dp/1851688145
But if we stop emissions now GW will probably continue to exist for around 1000 years as I read somewhere, and even could jump because cooling effects of soot will stop.
Global coordination problems also exist, but may be not so annoying. In first case punishment comes for non-cooperation, and in second—for actions, and actions always seems to be more punishable.
I’m not saying these mean we shouldn’t do geoengineering, that they can’t be solved or that they will happen by default, just that these are additional risks (possibly unlikely but high impact) that you ought to include in your assessment and we ought to make sure that we avoid.
Re coordination problems not being bad: It’s true that they might work out, but there’s significant tail risk. Just imagine that say, the US unilaterally decides to do geonengineering, but it screws up food production and the economy in China. This probably increases chances of nuclear war (even more so than if climate change does it indirectly, as there will be a more specific, attributable event). It’s worth thinking about how to prevent this scenario.
Scientific studies and preparation for GE is probably the longest part of GE, and could and should be done in advance, and it should not provoke war. If real necessity of GE appear, all need technologies will be ready.
Ok, I will add it as risks from geo-ingeneering
This has a more comprehensive list of emission reduction techniques, including building energy efficiency, industry energy efficiency, carbon capture from power plants and storage (at the bottom of the ocean or underground), nuclear energy, etc. As for removing the CO2 from the air, other options include growing biomass and burying it, encouraging cultivated lands to store more carbon (actually considered in the paper above), and chemical capture from the air and storing it underground. A hybrid technique is growing biomass, making liquid fuel, and sequestering the CO2, which is overall net negative emissions. As for solar radiation management, other options for increasing stratospheric reflectivity include photophoretic levitation of engineered aerosols, and nanoparticles from combustion. We might be able to use equatorial mountain combustion to inject the particles into the stratosphere. Other options for increasing surface albedo include reflective balloons in the ocean (not a good idea because of impact on marine life). A benefit of solar radiation management over reduction in emissions is that it enables higher agricultural productivity via CO2 fertilization. This is important because most of people who are in extreme poverty are farmers. Though CO2 fertilization was found to be not as large as once thought in natural ecosystems, the effect is large in agriculture because needs like water and fertilizer are generally provided for. Another benefit of solar radiation management is that if it looked like we were heading back into an ice age, we could turn it off.