Global Catastrophic Risks

A global catastrophic risk is one with the potential to wreak death and destruction on a global scale. In human history, wars and plagues have done so on more than one occasion, and misguided ideologies and totalitarian regimes have darkened an entire era or a region. Advances in technology are adding dangers of a new kind. It could happen again.In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including asteroid impacts, gamma-ray bursts, Earth-based natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes. This is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the big issues of our time; for students focusing on science, society, technology, and public policy; and for academics, policy-makers, and professionals working in these acutely important fields.

Auteur
Nick Bostrom, PhD, is Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, in the James Martin 21st Century School, at Oxford University. He previously taught at Yale University in the Department of Philosophy and in the Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies. Bostrom has served as an expert consultant for the European Commission in Brussels and for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington DC. He has advised the British Parliament, the European Parliament, and many other public bodies on issues relating to emerging technologies. Milan M. Cirkovic, PhD, is a senior research associate of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, (Serbia) and a professor of Cosmology at Department of Physics, University of Novi Sad (Serbia). He received both his PhD in Physics and his MSc in Earth and Space Sciences from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA) and his BSc in Theoretical Physics was received from the University of Belgrade.

Texte du rabat

A Global Catastrophic Risk is one that has the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale. This book focuses on such risks arising from natural catastrophes (Earth-based or beyond), nuclear war, terrorism, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and social collapse.

Contenu

• Acknowledgements

• Foreword

• Introduction

• I Background

• Long-term astrophysical processes

• Evolution theory and the future of humanity

• Millenial tendencies in responses to apocalyptic threats

• Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgement of global risks

• Observation selection effects and global catastrophic risks

• Systems-based risk analysis

• Catastrophes and insurance

• Public policy towards catastrophe

• II Risks from Nature

• Super-volcanism and other geophysical processes of catastrophic import

• Hazards from comets and asteroids

• Influence of Supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and cosmic rays on the terrestrial environment

• III Risks from Unintended Consequences

• Climate change and global risk

• Plagues and pandemics: past, present, and future

• Artificial Intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk

• Big troubles, imagined and real

• IV Risks from hostile acts

• Catastrophe, social collapse, and and human extinction

• The continuing threat of nuclear war

• Catastrophic nuclear terrorism: a preventable peril

• Biotechnology and biosecurity

• Nanotechnology as global catastrophic risk

• The totalitarian threat

• Author's biographies

• Index