Maybe premature to call this a win, but I think it’s major that EA can still raise and promote new causes like risks from mirror biology. As far as I know, this is because of great work from the (partially coefficient giving funded) Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund. They coordinated and published this article, and then oversaw a very successful media push. Looking forward to seeing more work on this in 2026!
My read was that a major success was that they seem to have broad, initial agreement, even among previously bullish scientists, that we should be extremely cautious when developing the scaffolding of mirror bio, if at all. I think that is truly remarkable, borderline historic. This is agreement across national borders, scientific disciplines and the argument they put forward was not watertight—there was no definite proof that mirror bio would assuredly be catastrophic. So this consensus was built on plausible risk only. It was extremely well pulled off. It is what skeptics might easily and still do dismiss as “sci-fi”.
Maybe premature to call this a win, but I think it’s major that EA can still raise and promote new causes like risks from mirror biology.
As far as I know, this is because of great work from the (partially coefficient giving funded) Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund. They coordinated and published this article, and then oversaw a very successful media push.
Looking forward to seeing more work on this in 2026!
My read was that a major success was that they seem to have broad, initial agreement, even among previously bullish scientists, that we should be extremely cautious when developing the scaffolding of mirror bio, if at all. I think that is truly remarkable, borderline historic. This is agreement across national borders, scientific disciplines and the argument they put forward was not watertight—there was no definite proof that mirror bio would assuredly be catastrophic. So this consensus was built on plausible risk only. It was extremely well pulled off. It is what skeptics might easily and still do dismiss as “sci-fi”.