Public Priorities for Open Philanthropy Project - Global Catastrophic Risks

	A	B	C	D	E	G	H	I	K	L	M	N	O	P	R
1						Summary (more detail to the right)			Likelihood and magnitude of potential catastrophe						Possible philanthropic interventions (not already funded)
2	Cause	Priority	Goal	Link	More public content planned at the moment?	Overall informal assessment of risk level (relative)	Overall informal assessment of philanthropic opportunities to further reduce risk	Need for a full-time specialist	Highest-damage scenario	Likelihood of highest-damage scenario over the next 100 years	Likelihood and magnitude of global catastrophe if highest-damage scenario takes place	High-damage scenario	Likelihood of high-damage scenario over the next 100 years	Likelihood and magnitude of global catastrophe if high-damage scenario takes place

3	Biosecurity	1	Make cause-specific hire	http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/biosecurity	More in-depth writeup forthcoming	High	Relatively strong opportunities	Very high	Synthetic pandemic (possibly optimized to maximize death toll)	Highly uncertain but quite plausible	Highly uncertain but very plausible	Natural pandemic	Very likely	Very likely (>50% for some major natural pandemic in next 100 years)	Many known (and expensive) preparations (e.g. disease surveillance, development and stockpile of countermeasures, improvement of preparatory plans and response capacity, and efforts (including regulation) to decrease the proliferation and increase the safety of risky emerging technology such as dual use research). Many gaps exist despite substantial government funding; philanthropy could fill gaps directly and/or aim to influence government funding.
4	Geoengineering research & governance	2	Infrastructure-building grant(s), preferably major	http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/geoengineering	More in-depth writeup forthcoming	Medium-high	Possibly very strong opportunities (pending research on robustness of current system)	Medium	Major social or political instability (such as war) due to unilateral use of geoengineering or catastrophic effects of climate change	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Climatic impacts of either climate change or geoengineering	Very likely	Very likely (>50%)	Policy-oriented research on how best to govern decisions about research and deployment. Building capacity and developing governance infrastructure. Scientific research on the effects of potential deployment. Very little funding in this space currently.
5	Geomagnetic storms	2	Determine need for, and potentially fund, research on electrical grid robustness	http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/geomagnetic-storms	Research report forthcoming	Medium-low	Relatively strong opportunities	Very low	Major social or political instability (such as war) following regional (~continent-level), sustained blackouts	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Major economic hit due to regional (continent-level), sustained blackouts	Highly uncertain but highly plausible	Highly uncertain but very plausible	Hardening electrical grid; operational mitigation (such as unplugging components in advance of a predicted storm); building spare transformers; research.
6	Other cross-cutting work	2	Evaluate specific grant opportunities	-	Grant writeups forthcoming depending on grants	(Cross-cutting)	TBD	Low	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)	N/A (different interventions will apply to different risks)
7	Potential risks from artificial intelligence	2	Monitoring cause; unsure of crowdedness	-	Medium writeup forthcoming	High	Highly uncertain	Low	Extremely powerful artificial-intelligence agent with misaligned values	Highly uncertain but plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	Use of extremely powerful artificial intelligence to disrupt geopolitics	Highly uncertain but quite plausible	Highly uncertain but very plausible	Room for more funding uncertain due to recent entry of major donor. See http://futureoflife.org/grants/large/initial for possible research agendas.
8	Food security	3	More cause-level investigation	-	Shallow writeup forthcoming	Medium; highly uncertain and cross-cutting	Highly uncertain	Low	Global collapse of agriculture from extreme climate change, large volcanic eruption, nuclear winter, or other possibilities	Highly uncertain but somewhat plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	Regional collapse of agriculture from extreme climate change, large volcanic eruption, nuclear winter, or other possibilities	Highly uncertain but quite plausible	Highly uncertain but very plausible	We have seen a proposed research agenda but so far have not found a consensus that it is promising. More attention to food stockpiling is also a possibility.
9	Risks from nuclear weapons	3	Monitoring cause for outstanding opportunities	http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/nuclear-security	More detailed writeup forthcoming	Medium-high	Not many suitable remaining opportunities	High	Nuclear winter following war between major nuclear powers (U.S. and Russia are the plausible candidates today but proliferation or increased stockpiles could create additional candidates)	Highly uncertain but somewhat plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	"Nuclear autumn" following war between moderate nuclear powers (such as contemporary Pakistan and India)	Highly uncertain but plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	Policy development in countries other than the U.S. has little funding but would be very difficult. Some experts say policy advocacy and public engagement in the U.S. are underfunded.
10	Anthropogenic climate change (other than geoengineering)	4	Not prioritized	http://www.givewell.org/shallow/climate-change	No	Medium-high	Not many suitable remaining opportunities	High	Major social or political instability (such as war) following disastrous climate change	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible	Major damage to global agriculture and/or refugees due to rising water levels	Relatively likely	Relatively likely (>20%)	R&D on clean tech, adaptation preparations, and working toward carbon pricing are all possibilities but all generally highly funded already.
11	Large volcanic eruptions	4	Monitoring cause for outstanding opportunities	http://www.givewell.org/shallow/volcanoes	No	Low	Not many suitable remaining opportunities	Low but uncertain	Global collapse of agriculture following major eruption	Very unlikely but uncertain	Very unlikely, with moderate uncertainty	Major eruption cools atmosphere, interferes with travel and agriculture, may increase risk of conflict	Relatively likely	Relatively likely (>20%)	Have heard few ideas for interventions other than research or improved prediction. Very little funding currently.
12	Atomically precise manufacturing	4	Not prioritized	-	Shallow writeup forthcoming	Medium	We are not aware of many suitable remaining opportunities, but it's possible some would exist if the area received more attention	N/A (not prioritized)	Nano-scale machines self-replicate to an extreme degree, leading to "grey goo" scenario	Very unlikely but somewhat uncertain	Very unlikely, with moderate uncertainty	Weaponized atomically precise manufacturing used in global war	Highly uncertain but plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	We have not heard strong ideas for interventions focused specifically on mitigating risks. Highly uncertain how much better proposals could be if the area received more attention.
13	Near-earth asteroids	5	Not prioritized	http://www.givewell.org/shallow/asteroid-detection	No	Low	Moderate opportunities	N/A (not prioritized)	Impact from object >10 km in diameter	Extremely unlikely	Extremely unlikely, with relatively high certainty	Impact from object >1km in diameter	Very unlikely	Very unlikely, with relatively high certainty	Tracking smaller asteroids, along the lines of http://sentinelmission.org/ . Largest asteroids already tracked.
14	Antibiotic resistance	5	Not prioritized	http://www.givewell.org/shallow/antibiotic-resistance	No	Low	Relatively strong opportunities	N/A (not prioritized)	Complete failure of antibiotics	Highly uncertain but plausible	Highly uncertain but plausible	Failure of some antibiotics	Very likely	Very likely (>50%)	More R&D on future antibiotics, as well as attempts to prevent antibiotic overuse. There is already a reasonable amount of funding in this area, but could be room for more.
15	Disaster shelters	5	Not prioritized	http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/disaster-shelters	No	Medium-low; highly uncertain and cross-cutting	Not many suitable remaining opportunities	N/A (not prioritized)	Major (synthetic?) pandemic or other situation in which shelters are key	Highly uncertain but seems fairly conjunctive; seems that few risks would wipe out all people outside shelters but not people inside shelters	Highly uncertain, somewhat conjunctive, but plausible (seems that few risks would wipe out all people outside shelters but not people inside shelters)	Scenario (such as particular global-war or pandemic scenarios) where shelters could help key decisionmakers survive or put individuals in a much stronger position to recover.	Relatively likely	Highly uncertain but plausible	Could build more or improved disaster shelters, but believe we are already at the point of diminishing returns.
16	Environmental catastrophe from synthetic biology (previously classified as part of biosecurity, but we are now planning a separate shallow-level investigation)	TBD	TBD	-	Shallow writeup in progress	TBD	TBD	TBD
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