I feel bad that a lot of people feel like they have no one to call about their concerns about existential risk, or adjacent topics that seem very important to them because of relevance to existential risk. I feel especially bad about this when folks contact me about such topics and I don’t have time to give a good response. This post is meant to encourage behavior that can gradually shift the world in a more positive direction for addressing people’s worries about x-risk.
I love my local fire department. There were serious wildfires in my area over the past year, and at times I felt worried about them. A few times, I called my local fire department for updates on the situation. They answered the phone, kindly responded to my questions about the fires, and told me how to sign up for more frequent updates. They tested their update system, and I received the tests. Conditional on the wildfires, I was quite happy about their responsiveness to my need for more information. Almost no one died of wildfires in California last year.
Who can you call if you’re worried about existential risk (x-risk), or global catastrophic risks more broadly? A lot of people have contacted me about this topic because it is my area of professional focus, particular as it pertains to artificial intelligence. I feel bad that I can’t be as responsive to them as my local fire department has been to me. If people are worried about x-risk, there should be someone they can call to get more information about it. My local fire department is the de facto best source of information about local fires, and is recognized as such, but currently there is no globally-recognized best source of information about x-risk (although some institutions are doing quite well in this regard in my opinion; see below.) So who should you be contacting if you’re worried about x-risk? Here’s what I suggest:
1) Therapists, for advice on managing your priorities or feelings. If you’re having trouble concentrating on other important things in your life (sleep, food, family, friends, work) because you can’t stop thinking about x-risk, please see a therapist. Seeing a therapist is also a good idea if you’re just worried and wish you could manage the anxiety better. You might feel that therapists don’t know anything about x-risk, but if you see 3-5 different therapists and pick the one you like best, you will probably find one that can help you manage your anxiety and focus your thinking about x-risk in ways that are non-destructive to your health and lifestyle. If you feel your therapist doesn’t understand you, tell them it bothers you that they don’t seem to understand you and you want to spend more of your time with them resolving that. If you feel your therapist doesn’t understand existential risk because it’s too abstract or intellectual, look for a therapist with a PhD, who is therefore more likely to be open to academic conversations.
It’s important to learn to manage one’s fears, anxieties, and frustrations around this topic before attempting to engage with experts on it; otherwise the conversation will probably be unproductive.
2) Academics, for expert information. If you need information directly from experts, you can try contacting personnel at research institutions who think about existential risk, such as:
- The Center for the Study of Existential Risk (Cambridge)
- The Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford)
- The Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (Stanford)
However, these folks are extremely busy, and probably won’t have time to respond to most people’s questions. In that case, I suggest contacting your local university instead. Even if you don’t get a good answer, you create evidence that people would like to be able to contact their local university with questions about x-risk, which over time can help can create jobs for people who want to think and communicate about x-risk professional. If that fails, you can also try:
3) Government representatives, for basic information, or as expert proxies. If you’re having a hard time reaching experts, or just want basic information about how governments and companies manage x-risk, I suggest you contact local representatives of your municipal or state government. They will not know as much about the topic as you’d like, so you should ask them to gather more information and get back to you about it. They might have better luck getting a conversation with experts than you will, and after they do that, they might be slightly better at answering future questions about the topic. In other words, you’ll have helped the government focus a bit more of its attention on x-risk, and thereby helped them to become slightly more informed about the topic.
Much of the government is responsive rather than proactive in nature, such that it can mostly only pay attention to topics if people pressure or expect them to. If we never ask, our governments will never learn to answer.
A note on contacting the government: Some folks I know have expressed that it would be bad for governments to get too interested in existential risk, because then the issue will become politicized in a way that damages discourse about it. I think there is some truth to this concern, however, I think this is higher order effect and is therefore less concerning than the problem of causing the government to gradually become more responsible and responsive to the topic. I think the kind of gradual force that’s created by contacting local representatives in a democracy creates a net-positive effect for the issue at hand, even if a certain amount of political machination inevitably ends up emerging around the topic.