Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
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The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) is a research centre at the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, intended to study possible extinction-level threats posed by present or future technology. The co-founders of the centre are
Huw Price Huw Price (; born 17 May 1953) is an Australian philosopher, formerly the Bertrand Russell Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was previously Challis Professor of Philosophy and Di ...
(Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge),
Martin Rees Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, ...
(the Astronomer Royal and former
President of the Royal Society The president of the Royal Society (PRS) is the elected Head of the Royal Society of London who presides over meetings of the society's council. After informal meetings at Gresham College, the Royal Society was officially founded on 28 November ...
) and
Jaan Tallinn Jaan Tallinn (born 14 February 1972) is an Estonian billionaire computer programmer and investor known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/ Kazaa. Jaan Tallinn is a leading figure in the field ...
(co-founder of
Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...
).


Areas of focus


Managing extreme technological risks

Risks are associated with emerging and future technological advances and impacts of human activity. Managing these extreme technological risks is an urgent task - but one that poses particular difficulties and has been comparatively neglected in academia. *CSER researchers developed a widely used tool to automatically scan the scientific literature for new research relevant to global risk. *CSER has held two international Cambridge Conferences on Catastrophic Risk. The Centre has also advised on the establishment of global risk projects at the Australia National University, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Warwick. *CSER helped establish the first
All-Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations is an informal cross-party group with the parliament of the United Kingdom. Its role is to raise the profile of long-term issues, protect the interests of future generations, and provide a ...
in the United Kingdom Parliament, bringing global risk and long-term thinking to UK political leaders. *CSER has held over thirty workshops bringing together academia, policy and industry on topics including cybersecurity, nuclear security, climate change, and gene drives. *CSER Public Lectures have been viewed over 100,000 times online.


Global catastrophic biological risks

*In 2017, CSER convened policy-makers and academics to identify challenges for the
Biological Weapons Convention The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpil ...
(BWC). A key issue identified was that the rapid rate of progress in relevant sciences and technologies has made it very difficult for governance bodies including the BWC to keep pace. *CSER researchers ran a horizon-scanning exercise for 20 Emerging Issues in Biological Engineering drawing on 30 European and US experts. They presented the paper at the 2017 Meeting of States Parties to the BWC, and at the Science Advisory Board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2018.


Extreme risks and the global environment

*
Martin Rees Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, ...
and
Partha Dasgupta Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta (born on 17 November 1942), is an Indian-British economist who is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Personal ...
, a senior advisor, have co-organised a series of influential workshops with the Vatican. The 2015 workshop influenced the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change, which in turn influenced the Paris Agreement on climate change. The 2017 workshop's findings will soon be published as a book on Biological Extinction. *CSER researchers have published on
biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...
and governance in Nature, the environmental impact of high-yield farming and prospects for geoengineering. *CSER researchers published a report calling for business school rankings to include sustainability. Four days later, the ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' announced a "complete review of our methodology."


Risks from advanced artificial intelligence

*In 2015 CSER helped organise a conference on the future directions of AI in Puerto Rico, resulting in an Open Letter on Artificial Intelligence signed by research leaders worldwide calling for research on ensuring that AI systems are safe and societally beneficial. *In 2016, CSER launched its first spin-off: the
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) is an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge that studies artificial intelligence. It is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The Centre brings together academ ...
(CFI). Led by Professor Price, CFI focuses on the opportunities and challenges posed by AI. *From 2017 onwards, CSER has organized a series of academic conferences bringing together Decision Theory and AI safety. *In 2018, with partners from tech companies and security think-tanks, CSER published ''The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Preventing and Mitigation'', on the implications of AI for physical and cybersecurity. They also published ''An AI Race: Rhetoric and Risks'', which won the inaugural Best Paper prize at the 2018
AAAI The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...
/ ACM AI Ethics and Society conference.


Media coverage

CSER has been covered in many different newspapers (particularly in the United Kingdom), mostly covering different topics of interest. CSER was profiled on the front cover of ''Wired'', and in the special
Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
issue of ''Science'' in 2018.


Advisors

CSER Advisors include Cambridge academics such as: *Sir
Partha Dasgupta Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta (born on 17 November 1942), is an Indian-British economist who is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Personal ...
(Economics), winner of the Blue Planet Prize *Professor
Susan Owens Susan Owens (born c. 1949) is an American lawyer, jurist, and a current Associate Justice of the Washington Supreme Court. On November 7, 2000, she was elected the seventh woman to serve on the court. She joined the court after serving nineteen ...
(Geography) *Professor Bill Sutherland (Zoology) *Professor
Jane Heal Barbara Jane Heal (''née'' Kneale, born 21 October 1946) is a British philosopher, and since 2012, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Biography Heal is daughter of a pair of notable Oxford philosophers William Cal ...
(Philosophy). And advisors such as: *
Hermann Hauser Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS, FREng, FInstP, CPhys (born 1948) is an Austrian-born entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England. Education and early life W ...
(founder of
Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom, UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archi ...
and
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
) *
David Cleevely David Douglas Cleevely, CBE, FREng, FIET (born September 1953) is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. Telecommunications In 1985 Cleevely founded t ...
(Telecommunications expert and Silicon Fen entrepreneur) *
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...
( Tesla and
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
) * George Church (Biotechnology) *
Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...
(Philosophy) *
Stuart J. Russell Stuart Jonathan Russell (born 1962) is a British computer scientist known for his contributions to artificial intelligence (AI). He is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley and was from 2008 to 2011 an adjunct ...
(Artificial intelligence) *
Max Tegmark Max Erik Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Future of Life Institute. He is also a scienti ...
(Cosmology).


See also

*
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes conte ...
*
Nuclear Threat Initiative The Nuclear Threat Initiative, generally referred to as NTI, is a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. The American foreign policy think tank was founded in 2001 by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and describes itself as a "nonprofit ...
*
Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (abbreviated CHS) is an independent, nonprofit organization of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The center works to protect people's health from epidemics and pandemics and ensures ...
*
Global Catastrophic Risks A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical future event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanen ...
*
Future of Humanity Institute The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and t ...
*
Future of Life Institute The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit organization that works to reduce global catastrophic and existential risks facing humanity, particularly existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The Institute's work is mad ...
*
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) is an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge that studies artificial intelligence. It is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The Centre brings together academ ...
*
Machine Intelligence Research Institute The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), is a non-profit research institute focused since 2005 on identifying and managing potential existential risks from artifi ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Existential Risk, Centre for the Study of Existential risk organizations Research institutes established in 2012 Research institutes in Cambridge Organizations associated with effective altruism