Speaking as someone who 1) has never been prompted to make any career or philanthropic decisions regarding nuclear risk reduction (and therefore not been motivated to think very rigorously about the subject), 2) may not have had a good sample/exposure to nuclear risk reduction advocacy (although I have had very little interaction with e.g., ICAN, which is a plus) 3) does not have formal academic or career experience in the nuclear realm; but 4) has been exposed to nuclear risk and strategy more so than the average person through personal research/curiosity, listening to podcasts on the subject, discussing the topic briefly with friends, and a summer position at the Center for Global Security Research:
I have long been skeptical of making serious net positive progress in the nuclear security realm, and every time I’ve tried to be open-minded about the idea of devoting lots of attention and resources to the subject, I’ve come away with equally if not more pessimistic views on the field. It often gives me the surface level feeling of watching people trying to kick down a brick wall, insisting that “it’s going to work, we just need more funding and time.” People like the NTI’s director get asked a straight question: “What are we going to do to reduce nuclear risk,” and she can’t seem to give a straight or compelling answer, just vague goal-wishing (vs. policy proposals, let alone compelling advocacy strategies) or policy proposals which seem like they may even introduce some risks (even if not adding risk on balance and possibly even reducing it)—assuming that the policy proposals were even politically tractable. Of course, much of this might not be so problematic, but then you hit a foundational issue: it seems very, very unlikely that we will face extinction due to nuclear war, whereas the probability of risks from alternative sources (e.g., engineered pandemics, unaligned AI) are much greater (at least in magnitude terms).
So, perhaps I don’t understand their perspective, as Dr. Lewis suggests in the podcast. However, when I have tried to understand their perspective—including by listening to hours of videos (talks) and podcasts by people in the nuclear risk field and reading various Bulletin/UCS articles—I haven’t seen a compelling case made by the traditional figures in the field. That’s not to say the field is hopeless, but I am fairly skeptical of many of the existing approaches’ likelihood of having much positive expected value if scaled. Perhaps it would have helped if Dr. Lewis made clear what EA doesn’t get, but I either missed it or he didn’t specify… (reinforcing my skepticism)
That was a lot of bottled up negativity and skepticism, but I’m happy that people are working on risk reduction as opposed to ~95% of other policy fields, I just want to see the work be more efficacy-oriented rather than prinicipalistic (among other desires).
Speaking as someone who 1) has never been prompted to make any career or philanthropic decisions regarding nuclear risk reduction (and therefore not been motivated to think very rigorously about the subject), 2) may not have had a good sample/exposure to nuclear risk reduction advocacy (although I have had very little interaction with e.g., ICAN, which is a plus) 3) does not have formal academic or career experience in the nuclear realm; but 4) has been exposed to nuclear risk and strategy more so than the average person through personal research/curiosity, listening to podcasts on the subject, discussing the topic briefly with friends, and a summer position at the Center for Global Security Research:
I have long been skeptical of making serious net positive progress in the nuclear security realm, and every time I’ve tried to be open-minded about the idea of devoting lots of attention and resources to the subject, I’ve come away with equally if not more pessimistic views on the field. It often gives me the surface level feeling of watching people trying to kick down a brick wall, insisting that “it’s going to work, we just need more funding and time.” People like the NTI’s director get asked a straight question: “What are we going to do to reduce nuclear risk,” and she can’t seem to give a straight or compelling answer, just vague goal-wishing (vs. policy proposals, let alone compelling advocacy strategies) or policy proposals which seem like they may even introduce some risks (even if not adding risk on balance and possibly even reducing it)—assuming that the policy proposals were even politically tractable. Of course, much of this might not be so problematic, but then you hit a foundational issue: it seems very, very unlikely that we will face extinction due to nuclear war, whereas the probability of risks from alternative sources (e.g., engineered pandemics, unaligned AI) are much greater (at least in magnitude terms).
So, perhaps I don’t understand their perspective, as Dr. Lewis suggests in the podcast. However, when I have tried to understand their perspective—including by listening to hours of videos (talks) and podcasts by people in the nuclear risk field and reading various Bulletin/UCS articles—I haven’t seen a compelling case made by the traditional figures in the field. That’s not to say the field is hopeless, but I am fairly skeptical of many of the existing approaches’ likelihood of having much positive expected value if scaled. Perhaps it would have helped if Dr. Lewis made clear what EA doesn’t get, but I either missed it or he didn’t specify… (reinforcing my skepticism)
That was a lot of bottled up negativity and skepticism, but I’m happy that people are working on risk reduction as opposed to ~95% of other policy fields, I just want to see the work be more efficacy-oriented rather than prinicipalistic (among other desires).