"The Era of Global Risk" (21 March 2023, CSER Public Lecture, University of Cambridge)
This event launched an ambitious new book – The Era of Global Risk as part of the Cambridge Festival 2023. This volume curates 11 specially commissioned essays that give a comprehensive and accessible overview of the emerging science of existential risk studies and is edited by SJ Beard, Clarissa Rios Rojas, and Catherine Richards of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), with Professor Lord Martin Rees.
The launch event was a panel discussion involving three of the book's contributing authors, with SJ Beard acting as chair and Martin Rees providing introductory remarks. The panelists are: Lara Mani, whose chapter explores the risk from asteroids and volcanoes and who is CSER’s lead researcher on communications and public engagement; Kayla Lucero-Matteucci, a PhD student and CSER Research Affiliate who has written about the military applications of AI and nuclear winter and John Burden, a Research Associate at CSER who has written about tracing the development of our understanding of Existential Risk from AI from its initial speculative origins to its current form as a fully-fledged science.
This panel discussion provided an engaging, insightful and hopeful discussion of the multiple overlapping challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century. While acknowledging that we are currently living through an era of global risk, it also shows that, with foresight and courage, humanity has the power to bring that era to a close and move on to a future of existential hope.
Speakers
- SJ Beard (Chair)
- Martin Rees
- Lara Mani
- Kayla Lucero-Matteucci
- John Burden
