Emerging Technologies: More to explore

Global historical trends

• Modeling the Human Trajectory (30 mins.)
• Books on macrohistory: Guns, Germs, and Steel or Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction

Biosecurity

• Does Biotechnology Pose New Catastrophic Risks?
  • A description of the challenges of managing dual-use capabilities enabled by modern biotechnology. (60 mins.)
• Explaining Our Bet on Sherlock Biosciences' Innovations in Viral Diagnostics
  • Open Philanthropy reports on their investment in Sherlock Biosciences to support the development of a diagnostic platform to quickly, easily, and inexpensively identify any human virus present in a sample. (15 mins.)

Shaping the development of artificial intelligence

• The new 30-person research team in DC investigating how emerging technologies could affect national security
  • How might international security be altered if the impact of machine learning is similar in scope to that of electricity? (Podcast - 2 hours)
• Potential Risks from Advanced Artificial Intelligence: The Philanthropic Opportunity
  • Why reducing risks from AI might be one of the most outstanding philanthropic opportunities. (40 mins.)
• Draft report on AI timelines
  • Ajeya Cotra discusses how we might estimate how long it will take for transformative AI to emerge. This report is very long, so we recommend starting with Rohin Shah's summary.
  • For more research and discussion on AI timelines, see AI Impacts and LessWrong.
• Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and The Problem of Control (Book)
• The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (Book)

Other

• Technology Roulette: Managing Loss of Control as Many Militaries Pursue Technological Superiority
  • An argument for how advances in military technology (including but not limited to AI) can impede decision-making and create risk, thus demanding greater attention by the national security establishment. (60 mins.)
• Big nanotech: towards post-industrial manufacturing
  • An explanation of how atomically precise manufacturing could displace industrial production technologies and bring radical improvements in production cost, scope, and resource efficiency. (10 mins.)
• AlphaGo
  • A documentary exploring what artificial intelligence can reveal about the ancient game of Go, and what that can teach us about the future potential of artificial intelligence. (Video - 1 hour 30 mins.)
• The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1 and Part 2
  • A lighthearted and interesting exploration of artificial intelligence by the popular blogger Tim Urban. (45 mins.)
  • Best read alongside Luke Muehlhauser's additional notes (which correct and clarify many details in Tim's posts).
• The Future of Surveillance
  • An exploration of ways in which the future of surveillance could be bad, and an investigation into accountable, privacy-preserving surveillance protocols. (Video - 15 mins.)