CSER Quarterly Report April 2017

05 May 2017

Read our Quarterly Report from April 2017 here: CSER Quarterly Report April 2017.

Overview: We’ve had a busy Winter break and Lent term, in which we’ve:

  • Hosted our first conference, the Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk (CCCR), which took place on December 12-14th at Clare College (http://cser.org/cccr2016/).
  • Organised a series of workshops on artificial intelligence risk scenarios, biorisks, geoengineering, and decision theory. These workshops have played important roles in both advancing our research projects, and in establishing strong links to relevant research and policy communities. The February AI and March ‘extreme biorisk’ workshop in particular allowed us to explore and identify research priorities in global-scale biorisk (natural and engineered).
  • Co-organised the Darwin “Extremes” lecture series (organised by CSER’s Julius Weitzdörfer) and a public lecture on climate change and existential risk (Professor Veerabhadran Ramanathan).
  • Been featured extensively in the media, including on the front page of Wired UK.
  • Published and submitted a number of papers as our research projects begin to bear fruit. This includes papers on geoengineering, on problems with current scientific structures, on biosecurity, on classifying global catastrophic risks, and several papers on decision theory.
  • Made a new appointment to our team: Haydn Belfield (Academic Project Manager).
  • Prepared to move office.
  • Advanced research on our main project, Managing Extreme Technological Risks, and given talks on our research at a range of conferences and events in and outside Cambridge.
  • Received a grant to expand our work on bio-risk and regulation, governance and responsible innovation in biotechnology.

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