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All of marialma's Comments + Replies

marialma7y0
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"Even if an outside expert spots a significant risk (think AI risk), if there's not a clear department responsible (in the UK: Business, Enterprise, and Innovation? Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport?) then nothing will happen." - I disagree with this point. You yourself pointed out the environmental movement. You can get x-risks onto the agenda without creating an entire branch of the government for it. Also, having x-risks identified by experts in the field who can talk about it amongst each other without immediately assuming “this is an x-risk... (read more)

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marialma7y0
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You'd have to get a ton of people with minimal overlap in professional interests/skills to work together in such an agency. And depending on the 'pet projects' of the people at the highest levels, you might get a disproportionate focus on one particular risk (similar to what you see in EA right now - might be difficult to retain biologists working on antimicrobial resistance, or gene drive safety). Then the politics of funding within such an agency would be another minefield entirely - "oh, why does the bioterrorism division get x% more funding than t... (read more)

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Kirsten
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It sounds like your main concerns are creating needless bureaucracy and moving researchers/civil servants from areas where they have a natural fit (eg pandemic research in the Department of Health) to an interdisciplinary group where they can't easily draw on relevant expertise and might be unhappy over different funding levels. The part of that I'm most concerned about is moving people from a relevant organisation to a less relevant organisation. It does make sense for pandemic preparation to be under health. The part of the current system that I'm most concerned about is identification of new risks. In the policy world, things don't get done unless there's a clear person responsible for them. If there's no one responsible for thinking about "What else could go wrong?" no one will be thinking about it. Alternatively, if people are only responsible for thinking "What could go wrong?" in their own departments (Health, Defense, etc) it could be easy to miss a risk that falls outside of the current structure of government departments. Even if an outside expert spots a significant risk (think AI risk), if there's not a clear department responsible (in the UK: Business, Enterprise, and Innovation? Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport?) then nothing will happen. If we have a clear place to go every time a concern comes up, where concerns can be assessed against each other and prioritised, we would be better at dealing with risks. In the US, maybe Homeland Security fills this role? Canada has a Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, so that's quite clear. The UK doesn't have anything as clearcut, and that can be a problem when it comes to advocacy. About your other points: -I don't like needless bureaucracy either, but it seems like bureaucracy is a major part of getting your issue on the agenda. It might be necessary, even if it doesn't seem incredibly efficient. -I actually think it would be really good to compare government funding for different catastr
marialma7y0
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I am not sure you are giving governments enough credit. Wrt things like gene drive safety, certain agencies are already working on these things. I know some researchers who just got a grant to work on how to contain and manage gene drives. US military research also includes plenty of stuff on bioterrorism - both agricultural and through pathogens. Grantmaking efforts are relatively rapid ways to get this stuff done, I think?

X-risk is so broad and cuts across so many different fields that dedicating an entire agency to it seems difficult, especially if you consider effectiveness.

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Kirsten
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I think the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of x-risks are the best arguments for a dedicated agency with a mandate to consider any plausible catastrophic risks. It's too easy to overlook risks without a natural "home" in a particular department right now.
The AIDS/malaria puzzle: bleg
marialma7y0
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I think, in this type of analysis, for an infectious disease, it's really important to look at potential for spread as well.

Malaria is region-constricted (only places with the right mosquitoes), whereas HIV is not. Therefore, there's a natural cap at the amount of malaria we can have if malaria control ceased to exist, whereas HIV's 'natural cap' is potentially "all susceptible humans".

If you include "all future infections" into the analysis, how much suffering due to HIV can be avoided due to current efforts to control HIV? I mean, ... (read more)

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