oops I think I answered this question up above. I think this is the link: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/fv/i_am_seth_baum_ama/2v9
SethBaum
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What funding will GCRI require over the coming year to maintain these activities?
GCRI has a small base of ongoing funding that keeps the doors open, so to speak, except that we don’t have any actual doors. I will say, not having an office space really lowers costs!
The important thing is that GCRI is in an excellent place to convert additional funding into additional productivity, mainly by freeing up additional person-hours of work.
Then I guess you don’t think it’s plausible that we can’t expect to make many permanent gains. Why?
I’ll have to look at that link later, but briefly, I do think it can be possible to make some permanent gains, but there seem to be significantly more opportunities to avoid permanent losses. That said, I do not wish to dismiss the possibility of permanent gains, and am very much willing to consider them as of potential comparable significance.
Here’s one question: which risks are you most concerned about?
I shy away from ranking risks, for several reasons:
The risks are often interrelated in important ways. For example, we analyzed a scenario in which geoengineering catastrophe was caused by some other catastrophe: http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_DoubleCatastrophe.html. This weekend Max Tegmark was discussing how AI can affect nuclear war risk if AI is used for nuclear weapons command & control. So they’re not really distinct risks.
Ultimately what’s important to rank is not the risks themselves, but the actions we can take to reduce them. We may sometimes have better opportunities to reduce smaller risks. For example, maybe some astronomers should work on asteroid risks even though this is a relatively low probability risk.
Also, the answer to this question varies by time period. For, say, the next 12 months, nuclear war and pandemics are probably the biggest risks. For the next 50-100 years, we need to worry about these plus a mix of environmental and technological risks.
And who do you think has the power to reduce those risks?
There’s the classic Margaret Mead quote, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” There’s a lot of truth to this, and I think the EA community is well on its way to being another case in point. That is as long as you don’t slack off! :)
That said, I keep an eye on a mix of politicians, other government officials, researchers, activists, celebrities, journalists, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and probably a few others. They all play significant roles and it’s good to be able to work with all of them.
What are GCRI’s current plans or thinking around reducing synthetic biology risk? Frighteningly, there seems to be underinvestment in this area.
We have an active synbio project modeling the risk and characterizing risk reduction opportunities, sponsored by the US Dept of Homeland Security: http://gcrinstitute.org/dhs-emerging-technologies-project.
I agree that synbio is an under-invested-in area across the gcr community. Ditto for other bio risks. GCRI is working to correct that, as is CSER.
Also, with regard to the research project on altruism, my shoot-from-the-hip intuition is that you’ll find somewhat different paths into effective altruism than other altruistic activities. Many folks I know now involved in EA were convinced by philosophical arguments from people like Peter Singer. I believe Tom Ash (tog.ash@gmail.com) embedded Qs about EA genesis stories in the census he and a few others conducted.
Thanks! Very helpful.
As for more general altruistic involvement, one promising body of work is on the role social groups play. Based on some of the research I did for Reducetarian message-framing, it seems like the best predictor of whether someone becomes a vegetarian is whether their friends also engage in vegetarianism (this accounts for more of the variance than self-reported interest in animal welfare or health benefits). The same was true of the civil right movement: the best predictor of whether students went down South to sign African Americans up to vote was whether they were part of a group that participated in this very activity.
Thanks again! I recall seeing data indicating that health was the #1 reason for becoming vegetarian, but I haven’t looked into this closely so I wouldn’t dispute your findings.
Buzz words here to aid in the search: Social proof Peer pressure Normative social influence Conformity Social contagion
Literature to look into: - Sandy Pentland’s “social physics” work: http://socialphysics.media.mit.edu/papers/ - Chapter 4 (“Social proof”) of Cialdini’s Influence: Science and Practice: http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996 - McKenzie-Mohr’s book on Community–Based Social Marketing: http://www.cbsm.com/pages/guide/preface/
Thanks!
thank you for your time and work!
You’re welcome!
If I wanted to work at GCRI or a similar think-tank/institution, what skills would make me most valuable?
Well, I regret that GCRI doesn’t have the funds to be hiring right now. Also, I can’t speak for other think tanks. GCRI runs a fairly unique operation. But I can say a bit on what we look for in people we work with.
Some important things to have for GCRI include: (1) a general understanding of gcr/xrisk issues, for example by reading research from GCRI, FHI, and our colleagues; (2) deep familiarity with specific important gcrs, including research literature, expert communities, and practitioner communities; (3) capability with relevant methodologies in quantitative risk analysis such as risk modeling and expert elicitation; (4) demonstrated ability to publish in academic journals or significant popular media outlets, speak at professional conferences, or otherwise get your ideas heard; (5) ability to work across academic disciplines and professions, and to work with teams of similarly diverse backgrounds.
What are your suggestions for someone who’s technically inclined and interested in directly working on existential risk issues?
It depends on what you mean by ‘technically inclined’. Could you clarify?
I’m particularly worried about the risks of totalitarianism, potentially leading to a what, IIRC, Bostrom calls a ‘whimper’: just a generally shitty future in which most people don’t have a chance to achieve their potential. To me this seems as likely if not more so than AI risk. What are your thoughts?
I don’t have confident estimates on relative probabilities, but I agree that totalitarianism is important to have on our radar. It’s also a very delicate risk to handle, as it points directly to the highest bastions of power. Interestingly, totalitarianism risk resonates well with certain political conservatives who might otherwise dismiss gcr talk as alarmist. At any rate, I would not discourage you from looking into totalitarianism risk further.
Over the twentieth century we sort of systematically deconstructed a lot of our grand narratives, like ‘progress’. Throwing out the narratives that supported colonialism was probably a net win, but it seems like we’re now at a point where we really need some new stories for thinking about the dangerous place we are in, and the actions that we might need to take. Do you have any thoughts on narratives as a tool for dealing with x-risks?
First, I commend you for thinking in terms of deconstructed narratives and narratives as tools. I’m curious as to your background. Most people I know who self-identify as ‘technically inclined’ cannot speak coherently about narrative construction.
This is something I think about a lot. One narrative I use comes from James Martin’s book ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century’. The title on its own offers a narrative, essentially the same as in Martin Rees’s ‘Our Final Century’. Within the book, Martin speaks of this era of human civilization as going through a period of turbulence, like in a river with rapids. I don’t have the exact quote here but I think he uses the river metaphor. At any rate, the point is that global civilization is going through a turbulent period. If we can successfully navigate the turbulence, we have a great, beautiful future ahead of us. I’ve used this in a lot of talks with a lot of different audiences and it seems to resonate pretty well.
How can we make our societies generally resilient to threats? Once we have some idea of how to make ourselves more resilient, how can we enact these ideas?
One common proposal is to stockpile food and other resources, or even to build refuges. This could be very helpful. An especially promising idea from Dave Denkenberger of GCRI and Joshua Pearce of Michigan Tech is to grow food from fossil fuels, trees, and other biomass. So even if the sun is blocked (as in e.g. nuclear winter) we can still feed ourselves. See http://www.appropedia.org/Feeding_Everyone_No_Matter_What. These are some technological solutions. It’s also important to have social solutions. These are institutions that respond well to major disturbances, psychological practices, and more. We say a bit on this in http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_AdaptationRecovery.html and http://gcrinstitute.org/aftermath, but this is an understudied area of gcr. However, there is a lot of great research on local-scale disaster vulnerability and resilience that can be leveraged for gcr.
I think that a really robust space program could be very important for x-risk mitigation. What are your thoughts? Do you see space-policy advocacy as an x-risk related activity?
It’s certainly relevant. I used to think it was not promising due to the extremely high cost of space programs relative to activities on Earth. However, Jacob Haqq-Misra (http://haqqmisra.net) of GCRI and Blue Marble Space made the great point that space programs may be happening anyway for other reasons, in particular political, scientific, and economic reasons. It may be reasonably cost-effective to ‘piggyback’ gcr reduction into existing space programs. This relates back to an earlier comment I made about the importance of stakeholder engagement.
Thanks Ryan! And thanks again for organizing.
My last question for now: what do you think is the path from risk-analysis to policy? Some aspiring effective altruists have taken up a range of relevant jobs, for instance working for politicians, in think tanks, in defence and in international governance. Can they play a role in promoting risk-reducing policies? And more generally, how can researchers get their insights implemented?
This is a really, really important question. In a sense, it all comes down to this. Otherwise there’s not much point in doing risk analysis.
First, there are risk analysis positions that inform decision making very directly. (I’m speaking here in terms of ‘decisions’ instead of ‘policies’ but you can use these words pretty interchangeably.) These exist in both government and the private sector. However, as a general rule the risks in question are not gcrs—they are smaller risks.
For the gcrs it’s trickier because companies can’t make money off it. I’ve had some funny conversations with people in the insurance industry trying to get them to cover gcrs. I’m pretty sure it just can’t be done. Governments can be much friendlier for gcr, as they don’t need to make it profitable.
My big advice is to get involved in the decision processes as much as possible. GCRI calls this ‘stakeholder engagement’. That is a core part of our integrated assessment, and our work in general. It means getting to know the people involved in the decisions, building relations with them, understanding their motivations and their opportunities for doing things differently, and above all finding ways to build gcr reductions into their decisions in ways that are agreeable to them. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to listen to the decision makers and try to understand things from their perspective.
For example, if you want to reduce AI risk, then get out there and meet some AI researchers and AI funders and anyone else playing a role in AI development. Then talk to them about what they can do to reduce AI risk, and listen to them about what they are or aren’t willing or able to do.
GCRI has so far done the most stakeholder engagement on nuclear weapons. I’ve been spending time at the United Nations, getting to know the diplomats and activists involved in the issues, and what the issues are from their perspectives. I’m giving talks on nuclear war risk, but much of the best stuff is in private conversations along the way.
At any rate, some of the best ways to reduce risks aren’t what logically follow from the initial risk analysis, but it feeds back into the next analysis. So it’s a two-way conversation. Ultimately I think that’s the best way to go for actually reducing risks.
Hi Ales,
Are you coordinating with FLI and FHI to have some division of labor?
We are in regular contact with both FLI & FHI. FHI is more philosophical than GCRI. The most basic division of labor there is for FHI to develop fundamental theory and GCRI to make the ideas more applied. But this is a bit of a simplication, and the coordination there is informal. With FLI, I can’t yet point to any conceptual division of labor, but we’re certainly in touch. Actually I was just spending time with Max Tegmark over the weekend in NYC, and we had some nice conversations about that.
What would you identify GCRI’s main comparative advantage?
GCRI comes from the world of risk analysis. Tony Barrett and I (GCRI’s co-founders) met at a Society for Risk Analysis conference. So at the core of GCRI’s identity and skill set is rigorous risk analysis and risk management methodology. We’re also good at synthesizing insights across disciplines and across risks, as in our integrated assessment, and at developing practical risk reduction interventions. Other people and other groups may also be good at some of this, but these are some of our strengths.
what kind of researchers do you think are needed most at GCRI?
Right now, I would say researchers who can do detailed risk analysis similar to what we did in our inadvertent nuclear war paper: http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_NuclearWar.html. The ability to work across multiple risks is extremely helpful. Our big missing piece has been on biosecurity risks. However, we have a new affiliate Gary Ackerman who is helping out with that. Also I’m participating in a biosecurity fellowship program that will also help. But we could still use more on biosecurity. That includes natural pandemics, biological weapons, biotech lab accidents, etc.
The other really important thing is people who can develop risk-reducing interventions that bring significant risk reductions and make sense from the perspective of the people who would take these actions. There’s a lot of important social science to be done in understanding the motivations of key actors, whether it is politicians, emerging researchers, or whoever else.
And do you expect the kinds of researchers that come to you are very different from the ones that are needed for catastrophic risk research in general, like at FHI, MIRI, FLI or CSER?
Definitely different from MIRI, as they’re currently focused on technical AI research and we do not do that. Relative to us, FHI is more philosophical, but we still talk with them a lot. CSER is just getting started with their post-docs arriving later this year, but I see a lot of parallels between CSER’s research approaches and GCRI’s. And I’m not quite sure what in-house research FLI is doing, so it’s hard for me to comment on that.
Overall, we tend to attract more social science and policy research, and more quantitative risk analysis, though that may be changing with CSER doing similar work. Regardless, we have excellent relations with each of these organizations, and collaborate with them where appropriate.
Good questions!
Of all the arguments you’ve heard for de-prioritizing GCR reduction, which do you find most convincing?
The only plausible argument I can imagine for de-prioritizing GCR reduction is if there are other activities out there that can offer permanent expected gains that are comparably large as the permanent expected losses from GCRs. Nick Beckstead puts this well in his dissertation discussion of far future trajectories, or the concept of “existential hope” from Owen Cotton-Barratt & Toby Ord. But in practical terms the bulk of the opportunity appears to be in gcr/xrisk.
Niel Bowerman: What is your assessment of the recent report by FHI and the Global Challenges Foundation? http://globalchallenges.org/wp-content/uploads/12-Risks-with-infinite-impact-full-report-1.pdf How will your integrated assessment differ from this?
I contributed a small amount of content to this, along with one other GCRI affiliate, but the bulk of the credit goes to the lead authors Stuart Armstrong and Dennis Pamlin. There are synergies between this and GCRI’s integrated assessment. We are in ongoing conversation about that. One core difference is that our integrated assessment focuses a lot more on interventions to reduce the risks.
How many man-hours per week are currently going into GCRI. How many paid staff do you have and who are they?
I don’t have data on person-hours. I am the only full-time GCRI staff. We have some people doing paid part-time work, and a lot of ‘volunteering’, though much of the ‘volunteering’ comes from people who participate in GCRI as part of their ‘day job’ - for example faculty members with related research interests.
What would you say is the single most impressive achievement that GCRI has achieved to date?
What I’m proudest of is the high-level stakeholder engagement we’ve had, especially on nuclear weapons. This includes speaking at important DC think tanks, the United Nations, and more. Our research is good, but research isn’t worth much unless the ideas actually go places. We’re doing well with getting our ideas out to people who can really use them.
First, I agree that a key to addressing global warming is to address the entrenched financial interests that have been opposing it. So you’re zooming in on at least one of the most important parts of it.
Your idea makes sense, at least at first glance. I don’t have a good sense for how politically feasible it is, but I’m afraid I’m skeptical. Any change to the structure of the political system that reduces large influences is likely to be fought by those influences. But I would not discourage you from looking into it further and giving it a try.