All of Joan Rohlfing's Comments + Replies

Thanks for asking.  I see a high degree of alignment and overlap between the EA community’s framing and cause areas, and NTI’s work.  At NTI, our vision is a world safe from preventable global catastrophe, and our mission is to transform global security by driving systemic solutions to nuclear and biological threats imperiling humanity.  It’s been exciting for me to get to know the EA community better and I look forward to exploring ways we can leverage each others’ strengths, capacities and skills to expand our collective impact.  At N... (read more)

The reality is that as long as other states possess nuclear weapons, the United States will continue to maintain nuclear forces for deterrence.  I believe their purpose should be only to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others, and that the US should maintain the minimum number of forces we believe we need to serve that purpose.  At the same time, the US must vigorously pursue further nuclear reductions and limits with Russia, and eventually, multilateral arms control to reduce and ultimately eliminate the nuclear forces of all states that hav... (read more)

For nuclear risk reduction, I believe AI/ML and the growing availability of big data are potentially game changing.  In a world where the vast majority of collective human actions and behaviors leave a digital footprint, we now have a set of new tools for detecting illicit nuclear behavior (like illicit trade in nuclear dual use components, or the production of weapons grade uranium or plutonium). Like any new technology, we have to work to capture the benefits while minimizing the risks they bring, so we at NTI are looking at both sides.

Last year NTI... (read more)

They are inextricably linked. The 2021 Global Health Security Index – a project led by NTI in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security –  found that 94% of countries have no national level oversight measures for dual use research, no agency responsible for the oversight, and no evidence of national assessments of dual use research. Additionally, there is no international entity that has dedicated, as its top priority, efforts to strengthen biosecurity and bioscience governance and to reduce emerging biological risks associated wit... (read more)

Thanks for this very thoughtful question, Tessa.

1. What are the most important problems for this project, and what is stopping you (/NTI) from working on them right now?

The Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction Initiative (BIRRI) was born from the recognition that advances in biotechnology are rapidly outpacing the ability of governments to provide effective oversight. Through BIRRI, we are working to identify efforts that would be most impactful in safeguarding science and reducing the risk of catastrophic events that could result from delib... (read more)

Thanks so much for this really fun question!  It provoked a really interesting discussion with some of my colleagues.

There are a large number of important works of fiction that illuminate nuclear dangers and different ways the human species can respond to them.  

A new personal favorite of mine is Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, which is about climate change, but illuminates ways in which global governance might begin to value the lives of future generations who would suffer unbelievably from planetary scale harms.  N... (read more)

We need to do both – in parallel and with urgency – until we mitigate both risks. At NTI, we use a mix of strategies to maximize our effectiveness in each area. We engage with stakeholders and governments, we develop and field test innovative ideas, we convene and consult with the world’s best experts – and then we adjust our strategies as we go. Through it all, we use our evidence-based findings and solutions to keep the pressure on global leaders, whether in government or the private sector, to prioritize risk reduction in both areas. 

We have to pursue multiple strategies for reducing nuclear risks – no one strategy alone is sufficient. Because governments possess nuclear weapons and have the resources necessary for implementing risk reduction measures at the scale that’s needed, it’s imperative to continue to leverage policy change by governments as a core focus of nuclear risk reduction efforts. This includes generating creative ideas for policy solutions that governments could adopt. But a strategy that focuses only on persuading government leaders to adopt policy changes has pr... (read more)

In my view, the most immediate catastrophic/existential threats facing humanity are biological risks, nuclear risks,  climate change, and AI. 

To address these global catastrophic risks to humanity, the world must first and foremost recognize the enormity of these threats and the catastrophic consequences of not addressing them with the urgency or creativity required to solve them.  

Second, these threats have in common the reality that their mitigation will require unprecedented global cooperation and an approach that takes advantage of ... (read more)

Technology in the nuclear weapon space is quickly evolving. I can imagine numerous scenarios where emerging technologies could lead to nuclear escalation and devastating conflict. For example, there are plausible scenarios involving a conflict that evolves from a cyber attack or cyber interference in nuclear command and control systems. During a moment of high tension, such an attack could trigger a nuclear response. This could also happen due to a cyber attack from a nonstate actor. Confusion about intent and attribution could lead to a breakdown in ... (read more)

Thanks for this question Stephen.  Let me start with my overall perspective on the probability of use:  Over the 'deep time' periods about which I have learned much from the EA Community -- periods of hundreds or thousands of years – I believe a CNE is a near certainty unless we dramatically reduce this risk.  For a while, states acquired nuclear weapons roughly at the rate of one every five years; this rate slowed after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was negotiated, but has never stopped.  Over the next century, we will either ma... (read more)

Unfortunately I think there are multiple pathways to nuclear use or an exchange involving several pairings or groupings of states with nuclear weapons including: US-Russia and scenarios that could also involve the UK and France along with the US; US-China; India- Pakistan; China – India; DPRK – US; and potentially Iran and other countries should Iran decide to build a nuclear weapon, not to mention the potential for terrorists to get hold of nuclear weapons or materials.  

So I believe our priorities in the nuclear space must be first to build awarenes... (read more)

Thanks for asking, Stephen. Please see my answer above to Hauke Hillebrandt's question on MacArthur.

Thanks for this question. I want to begin by saying how enormously appreciative we are for MacArthur’s support over the years. 

The MacArthur Foundation announced at the beginning of 2021 that they were ending their funding for the nuclear field after more than 40 years of support for civil society groups doing important nuclear risk reduction work.  By MacArthur’s own estimate, their nuclear funding represented around 45% of philanthropic funding for civil society groups working on nuclear issues (principally in the US).  The nuclear fi... (read more)

Yes and yes! NTI has worked with Andrew in recent years, and his book does a good job of explaining just how dangerous cyber threats to nuclear weapons systems can be – whether in the U.S., UK, Russia, China, or the other states with nuclear weapons. There’s no question that nuclear weapons and related systems are increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks, and nuclear-armed countries have a responsibility to cooperate and accelerate efforts to prevents an attack that could have catastrophic consequences. But they need help. Developing inno... (read more)