Risks associated with emerging and future technological advances, and impacts of human activity, threaten human extinction or civilisational collapse. Managing these extreme technological risks is an urgent task - but one that poses particular difficulties and has been comparatively neglected in academia.
Our flagship research project is to develop, implement and refine an initial model of a systematic approach to addressing how this class of risks can best be identified, managed and mitigated.
Motivation
There seems to be a small but real possibility that civilization ends in the next century. This would not only be terrible for the present generation, it would permanently remove the possibility of a good future. Future generations do not have a voice in our present politics and society, but it seems discriminatory to disregard their interests.
Most people are familiar with natural risks such as asteroid impact and supervolcano eruption. We are more concerned with risks associated with human technology and activity, such as nuclear war, engineered pandemic, climate change, ecological collapse, or advanced artificial intelligence.
Our hypothesis is that studying these risks in a collaborative, interdisciplinary way within one centre - with strong links to technologists, policy-makers, and other academics - will uncover new insights and approaches.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Related team members
Related resources
-
-
How to (Re)Use Big Data
Video by Sabina Leonelli
-
Why is the Doomsday Clock the closest its ever been to Midnight?
Video by Rachel Bronson
-
-
-
Special Issue: Existential risk to humanity
Peer-reviewed paper by Olle Häggström, Catherine Rhodes
-
Extremes
Book by Duncan Needham, Julius Weitzdörfer
-
-
-
-
-
Existential Risk Assessment: A reply to Baum
Peer-reviewed paper by SJ Beard, Thomas Rowe, James Fox
-
Written Evidence: UK ARPA – Key Recommendations
Report by Nick Bostrom, Haydn Belfield, Sam Hilton
-
Accumulating evidence using crowdsourcing and machine learning: a living bibliography about existential risk and global catastrophic risk
Peer-reviewed paper by Gorm Shackelford, Luke Kemp, Catherine Rhodes, Lalitha Sundaram, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, SJ Beard, Haydn Belfield, Julius Weitzdörfer, Shahar Avin, Dag Sørebø, Elliot M. Jones, John B. Hume, David Price, David Pyle, Daniel Hurt, Theodore Stone, Harry Watkins, Lydia Collas, William Sutherland
-
-
-
-
Interventions that may prevent or mollify supervolcanic eruptions
Peer-reviewed paper by David Denkenberger, Robert W Blair Jr
-
Global catastrophic and existential risks communication scale
Peer-reviewed paper by Alexey Turchin, David Denkenberger
-
Measuring changes in urban functional capacity for climate resilience: Perspectives from Korea
Peer-reviewed paper by Donghyun Kim, Seul-Ki Song
-
Preserving the norm against chemical weapons: A civil society initiative for the 2018 4th review conference of the chemical weapons convention
Peer-reviewed paper by Michael Crowley, Lijun Shang, Malcolm Dando
-
Governing Boring Apocalypses: A new typology of existential vulnerabilities and exposures for existential risk research
Peer-reviewed paper by Hin-Yan Liu, Kristian Cedervall Lauta, Matthijs Michiel Maas
-
Accompanying technology development in the Human Brain Project: From foresight to ethics management
Peer-reviewed paper by Christine Aicardi, B. Tyr Fothergill, Stephen Rainey, Bernd Carsten Stahl, Emma Harris
-
-
-
Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back
Peer-reviewed paper by Peter Kareiva, Valerie Carranza
-
-
In defence of story-telling
Peer-reviewed paper by Adrian Currie, Kim Sterelny
-
-
The Value of Performance Weights and Discussion in Aggregated Expert Judgments
Peer-reviewed paper by Anca M. Hanea, Marissa F. McBride, Mark A. Burgman, Bonnie Wintle
-
Languages Are Still a Major Barrier to Global Science
Peer-reviewed paper by Tatsuya Amano, Juan P. Gonzalez-Varo, William Sutherland
-
-
Representation of future generations in United Kingdom policy-making
Peer-reviewed paper by Natalie Jones, Mark O'Brien, Thomas Ryan
-
-
Metaresearch for Evaluating Reproducibility in Ecology and Evolution
Peer-reviewed paper by Fiona Fidler, Bonnie Wintle, Yung En Chee, Mark A. Burgman, Michael A. McCarthy, Ascelin Gordon
-
-
-
Investigate Discuss Estimate Aggregate for structured expert judgement
Peer-reviewed paper by Anca Hanea, Bonnie Wintle, Marissa McBride, Mark A Burgman, Fiona Fidler, Louisa Flander, Charles R Twardy, Steven Mascaro, Brian Manning
-
-
A Horizon Scan of Global Conservation Issues for 2016
Peer-reviewed paper by Nancy Ockendon, Steven Broad, William Sutherland, Bonnie Wintle, Jacqueline Caine, Mike Clout, Lynn V Dicks, Helen Doran, Abigail C Entwistle, Erica Fleishman, David W Gibbons, Brandon Keim, Becky LeAnstey, Fiona A Lickorish, Kathryn A Monk, Diana Mortimer, James W Pearce-Higgins, Lloyd S Peck, Jules Pretty, Johan Rockström, Mark D Spalding, Femke H Tonneijck, Katherine E Wright
-
Responsibility and Inequality in a Risky World
Video by Heather Douglas
-
-
-
-
A 2017 Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biological Diversity
Peer-reviewed paper by William Sutherland, Phoebe Barnard, Bonnie Wintle, Nancy Ockendon, Steven Broad, Mick Clour, Ben Connor, Isabelle Côte, Lynn Dicks, Helen Doran, Abigail Entwistle, Erica Fleishman, Marie Fox, Kevin Gaston, David Gibbons, Zhigang Jiang, Brandon Keim, Fiona Lickorish, Mark Spalding, Femke Tonneijck
-
Young Researchers & Responsible Conduct of Science: Successes and failures
Video by Zabta K. Shinwari
-
Opening Session Part 2
Video by Rowan Douglas
-
-
Technology: Transparency vs Privacy
Video by Neal Katyal
-
-
Context-Dependent Utilities
Peer-reviewed paper by Haim Gaifman, Yang Liu
-
-
Extreme risk management in the policy environment
Video by Claire Craig
-
-
A practical guide to structured expert elicitation using the IDEA protocol
Peer-reviewed paper by Victoria Hemming, Bonnie Wintle, Mark A. Burgman, Anca M. Hanea, Marissa F. McBride