[tt] [x-risk] Hughes on Cat Risks in the Boston Globe

Sun Sep 7 15:56:27 UTC 2008

----- Forwarded message from "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes at trincoll.edu> -----

From: "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes at trincoll.edu>
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 11:34:13 -0400
To: News and views from the IEET <ieet-news at ieet.org>,
	existential at transhumanism.org
Subject: [x-risk] Hughes on Cat Risks in the Boston Globe
Reply-To: For discussion of existential risks <existential at transhumanism.org>

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/09/07/a_talk_with_james_hughes/ 

A talk with James Hughes

Physicists, zombies, rogue nanobots, and other long-odds threats to life
as we know it.

By Peter Bebergal  |  September 7, 2008

ON WEDNESDAY, HUNDREDS of feet below ground in Europe, a proverbial
switch will be pulled on the Large Hadron Collider, a new multibillion
dollar machine designed to smash subatomic particles together at immense
speeds. The device could help physicists rewrite the rules of the
universe. It could also, just possibly, do something else: create a tiny
black hole that would result in the end of all life as we know it.

Most scientists are confident that the danger is vanishingly small, and
a number of research papers have concluded the experiment is safe. But
are the potential gains to science really worth even a tiny risk of
eradicating the earth? This question, writ large, is the province of a
group of scholars who study potential global catastrophe. At the center
of their work lies an almost unanswerable question: How should we deal
with very unlikely threats that also carry the potential to extinguish
human civilization?

This past July, specialists convened in Oxford, England, for the first
Global Catastrophic Risks Conference. The group included philosophers,
physicists, and sociologists; aside from the huge particle accelerator,
they looked at the threat of massive asteroid collisions, gamma ray
bursts from supernovas that could sterilize the planet, man-made
nanobots that could replicate and consume the earth's surface, and
out-of-control artificial intelligence.

James Hughes, a lecturer in public policy at Trinity College and the
executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging
Technologies, spoke at the conference on how apocalyptic fears (and
hopes) inhibit clear thinking about catastrophic risks. A sociologist by
training, Hughes is optimistic that humanity will be sufficiently
technologically savvy by the time it faces some of the more awful
possible predicaments. But he also suggests that we do need to start
focusing on some long-term threats.

Ideas spoke with Hughes by phone at his home in Willington, Conn.

IDEAS: What are some of the man-made risks we should be concerned about?

HUGHES: Well, there are the traditional 20th-century man-made risks that
most people think about, the weapons of mass destruction risks: nuclear
weapons, bioterrorism. Chemical weapons are not really part of the
picture. But bioterrorism could theoretically create some kind of agents
that could wipe out most of humanity.

IDEAS: Is there a way to keep new and dangerous technologies at bay?

HUGHES: I think one of the reasons why people are extremely pessimistic
about this is that we don't have a global regime that would make it
possible to ban technologies on a global level yet. Some people see the
risk of the creation of such a regime as such a risk in of itself.

IDEAS: Who needs to be thinking about this kind of threat - the
researchers at the conference, or the scientists creating the
technology?

HUGHES: In this case we were saying, "Well, this is really philosophical
about how we assess risk, and once we figure all that out, we'll advise
the government." In fact, we had a one day seminar for the British
version of Homeland Security. . . . They think about a whole different
category of risk - the things that are in a five-year time horizon like
floods. Asteroids and all these other things weren't ever on their
table, so we were kind of talking past each other. But it was the right
conversation to have.

IDEAS: With asteroid collisions, is there enough risk that we should be
investing huge amounts of money into making sure we're safe?

HUGHES: Well, I think there's a general consensus among
catastrophic-risk people that . . . it deserves at least as much money
as we put into other science and military endeavors.

IDEAS: Do you feel a little heart-heavy when you realize that we're
barely prepared to help a major American city survive a hurricane?

HUGHES: Yes, I'm heart-heavy. . . . At every single level you have these
huge, seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The public and policy makers
seem to jump from risk to risk without any serious considerations. The
risk of an American dying of a terrorist attack is smaller than the risk
of being hit by lightning. So why did we spend almost a trillion dollars
over the last eight years on the war on terror, and not people getting
hit by lightning?

IDEAS: What about the Hadron Collider? How do you decide ultimately to
turn the thing on?

HUGHES: I think there is some threshold of risk at which you have to
say, "OK, even though it's a really small risk, if it's the end of
everything, then you shouldn't do that." The argument that I found
convincing was that the nature of the risks of the Hadron Collider
creating a catastrophe was on the same level at which you're driving
down the road and having your car spontaneously turn into a horse
through simple quantum fluctuation.

IDEAS: Should scientists be held accountable, or should they be allowed
to do their work unfettered?

HUGHES: I think we all have an obligation as individuals to try to
assess the future consequences of our actions. . . . But, that said,
scientists are neither prepared to assess the consequences of their
actions or the ethical nature of their actions. And like all people in
all occupations in all walks of life, they have vested interest.

IDEAS: In terms of man-made technology, can we evolve faster than our
ability to destroy ourselves?

HUGHES: I think Einstein may have even said it - we weren't wise enough
for how fast our technology is evolving. With the nuclear weapons and
bioterrorism, we have a pretty good idea of how to assess these risks.
We've known what to do for 50 years, and we haven't really done it -
which is to create strong transnational institutions that monitor
everybody who's doing nukes.

IDEAS: And yet we're continuing to work on technologies that could lead
to threats in the future.

HUGHES: We're not going to give up Google because of the hypothetical
possibility that everything that's connected to Google will suddenly
wake up and take over the Net. Google is just too useful to us.

IDEAS: So ultimately should short-term progress trump longer-term risk?

HUGHES: If you saw . . . the Will Smith movie ["I Am Legend"] . . . what
creates this global zombie apocalypse is the mutant version of a cancer
drug. . . . I can't say there's no possibility that gene therapy for
cancer, or stem cell research for cancer, might lead to a zombie
apocalypse, but it's extremely unlikely. So at some point you have to
say, "What is the real risk?"

Peter Bebergal is a frequent contributor to the Globe. He has a blog at
mysterytheater.blogspot.com. 

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