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The Cambridge
Project for Existential Risk
Many scientists are concerned that developments in
human technology may soon pose new,
extinction-level risks to our species as a whole.
Such dangers have been suggested from progress in
AI, from developments in biotechnology and
artificial life, from nanotechnology, and from
possible extreme effects of anthropogenic climate
change. The seriousness of these risks is
difficult to assess, but that in itself seems a
cause for concern, given how much is at stake.
(For a brief introduction to these issues, see our Resources page.)
The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk — a
joint initiative between a philosopher, a
scientist, and a software entrepreneur — begins
with the conviction that these issues require a
great deal more scientific investigation than they
presently receive. Our aim is to establish within
the University of Cambridge a multidisciplinary
research centre dedicated to the study and
mitigation of risks of this kind. We are convinced
that there is nowhere on the planet better suited
to house such a centre. Our goal is to steer a
small fraction of Cambridge's great intellectual
resources, and of the reputation built on its past
and present scientific pre-eminence, to the task
of ensuring that our own species has a long-term
future. (In the process, we hope to make it a
little more certain that we humans will be around
to celebrate the University's own millennium, now
less
than two centuries hence.)
We are developing a prospectus for a
Cambridge-based Centre
for the Study of Existential Risk, and seeking sources of funding. We welcome enquiries and offers
of support — please see our News & Contact page for contact details and a sign-up link for our new mailing list, CSER News.
HP, MJR & JT
December 2012
Co-founders
Huw Price
Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy,
Cambridge
Martin
Rees
Emeritus Professor of Cosmology &
Astrophysics, Cambridge
Jaan
Tallinn
Co-founder of Skype
Cambridge advisors
David
Cleevely
Founding
Director, Centre for Science and Policy
Tim Crane
Knightbridge
Professor of Philosophy
Partha Dasgupta
Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics
Robert
Doubleday
Executive
Director, Centre for Science and Policy
Hermann
Hauser
Co-founder,
Amadeus
Capital Partners
Stephen Hawking
Director of Research, DAMTP; former Lucasian Professor of Physics
Jane
Heal
Emeritus
Professor of Philosophy
Sean
Holden
Senior
Lecturer, Computing Laboratory; Fellow of
Trinity College
Adrian Kent
Reader in Quantum Physics, DAMTP; Distinguished Visiting Research Chair, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Susan Owens
Professor of Environment and Policy and Professorial Fellow of Newnham College
David
Spiegelhalter
Winton
Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk
William Sutherland
Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology
Emeritus
Professor of Philosophy
Adrian Weller
Director, Cambridge in America
External advisors
Margaret Boden
Research Professor
of Cognitive Science, University of Sussex
Nick Bostrom
Professor
of Philosophy, Future of Humanity Institute,
Oxford
David
Chalmers
Professor
of Philosophy, NYU & ANU
George
M Church
Professor
of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
Doyne Farmer
Co-Director, Complexity Economics, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford
Robert May
Professor
of Zoology, Oxford; Fellow of Merton College; past President of the Royal Society
Dana
Scott
Emeritus
Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy &
Mathematical Logic, Carnegie Mellon University
Murray
Shanahan
Professor
of Cognitive Robotics, Imperial College, London
Max
Tegmark
Professor
of Physics, MIT
Jonathan
B Wiener
Professor
of Law, Environmental Policy & Public
Policy, Duke University
Faculty of
Philosophy|CSaP|CRASSH|University of
Cambridge
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