The
Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board is working on many
programs to reduce
existential
risks. They are:
Current Programs
To protect against unfriendly AI (Artificial
Intelligence).
To protect against devastating asteroid
strikes.
To protect against bioweapons and pandemics.
To preserve the information created by our civilization, including
technology, art, and culture.
As the Internet grows in importance, an attack on it could cause
physical as well as informational damage. An attack today on hospital
systems or electric utilities could lead to deaths. In the future an
attack could be used to alter the output that is produced by
nanofactories worldwide leading to massive deaths.
The LifePreserver program is designed to bring you the latest
information about aging research and the progress towards treating
age-related diseases. The program also aims to bring you practical
information about the steps you can take now to slow the aging process
and delay the onset of age-related disease.
Developing fallback positions on Earth in case programs such as our
BioShield and
NanoShield fail globally or locally.
To protect against ecophages and nonreplicating
nanoweapons.
This shield strives to protect scientists from obstacles that
would prevent latter day Max Plancks from completing their
research.
To prevent nuclear, biological, and nanotechnological attacks
from occurring by using surveillance and
sousveillance
to identify terrorists before they are able to launch their attacks.
To build fail-safes against global existential risks by encouraging
the spread of sustainable human civilization beyond Earth.
Future Programs
To preserve animal life and diversity on the planet.
To protect against unwanted climate changes.
Explores new communication technology for surviving
existential events.
If our civilization ran out of energy, it would grind to a halt, so
Lifeboat Foundation is looking for solutions.
To prevent abuse in the areas of neuropharmaceuticals,
neurodevices, and neurodiagnostics. Worst cases include enslaving
the
world’s population or causing everyone to commit suicide.
To prevent nuclear holocausts including destruction of
entire cities.
To prevent, and also make plans on surviving when possible, particle
accelerator mishaps
including quantum vacuum collapse, mining the quantum vacuum,
formation of a stable strangelet, and
the creation of artificial mini-black holes.
Methods of preserving persons — or just their personalities
— include
cryopreservation and
uploading.
To preserve plant life and diversity on the planet by storing seeds in
safe locations and other methods.
Long Range Programs
To prevent annihilation by an alien race (biological or
otherwise).
To prevent antimatter-based annihilation.
To protect against black holes that are not manmade.
This would include an “eye to the sky” program that would scan for
signs of them.
To protect against gamma ray bursts.
To protect against and/or cope with our sun becoming a red giant and
other harmful fluctuations in its output.