The Global Risk Reduction SIG Presents: Existential Risk/Opportunity Singularity Management.
(Room Encanto B)
04 Jul 19
7:30 PM
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8:45 PM
Learn how to save the world. There were several mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Asteroid impact, thought to have killed the dinosaurs, could do the same to us. Fortunately, natural extinctions happen infrequently. We do not have equivalent safety information about extinctions that might be caused by human technology. Some technological disaster scenarios seem distressingly plausible. However, our current exponentially increasing technology may also create singularities, in math when functions go to infinity, in technology, when things become transcendently amazing. Some amazing technology could be protective. For example, large-scale space settlement could be a backup for Earth. It is hard to accomplish things on this level, but heroes of history have done so. Our strategy is to conceptualize solutions and try a lot of them. Occasionally something works. We hope to suggest good directions for public policy, to promote solutions, and to recruit a few good people to help with our quest.