Lifeboat Foundation
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The Lifeboat Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.
Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.
The Lifeboat Foundation was formed with the ethical premise that decreasing the likelihood of human exinction is the activity with the most positive utility on the planet today. In recent years, several prominent public figures have stepped forward strongly in favor of mitigating extinction risks. Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom writes, “For standard utilitarians, priority number one, two, three and four should consequently be to reduce existential risk. The utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!” can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”.
In a widely read WIRED article titled, "Why the future doesn't need us", co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy, writes, "Given the incredible power of these new technologies, shouldn't we be asking how we can best coexist with them? And if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible, outcome of our technological development, shouldn't we proceed with great caution?" Famous physicist Stephen Hawking writes, "It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
The famous investor Warren Buffet is also concerned with the risk of human extinction. He has pointed out that, "We would regard ourselves as vulnerable to extinction as a company if we did not have nuclear, biological and chemical risks excluded from our policies." In general, the Lifeboat Foundation focuses on risks with the potential to wipe out all life, rather than just a segment. It has proposed a variety of countermeasures to prevent these risks, and is building a Lifeboat fund for putting these countermeasures into action.
The President and Founder of the Lifeboat Foundation is Eric Klien, its International Evangelist is Philippe van Nedervelde, its Fundraising Director is Michael Anissimov, and its Director of Long-term Strategy is Michael Vassar. The Lifeboat Foundation is tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code.
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[edit] Scientific Advisory Board
The organization has a very large Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), composed of 221 members as of October 2006, which includes philosophers, economists, biologists, nanotechnologists, AI researchers, educators, policy experts, engineers, lawyers, ethicists, futurists, neuroscientists, physicists, and space experts. The SAB includes three Nobel Prize winners: Frank Wilczek, Clive Granger, and Wole Soyinka.
[edit] Lifeboat Foundation Programs
The Lifeboat Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board is working on a number of programs to access risks, negate them ("shields"), and survive catastrophic events ("preservers"):
Many future programs are in the works, including programs to prevent risks from AI, particle accelerator mishaps, and to maintain communications networks in case of disaster.
[edit] See also
Prominent individuals encouraging the mitigation of existential risk:
- Stephen Hawking - famous physicist who encourages space colonization to mitigate risk
- Warren Buffett - one of the richest people in the world who is concerned about extinction risk
- Sir Martin Rees - President of the Royal Society, author of "Our Final Hour"
- Ray Kurzweil - famous inventor and futurist, author of "The Singularity is Near"
- Bill Joy - co-founder of Sun Microsystems, author of "Why the future doesn't need us"
- Nick Bostrom - Oxford philosopher, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute
Related topics:
- existential risk
- molecular nanotechnology
- utility fog
- seed AI
- space colonization
- biosecurity
- technological singularity
[edit] External Links
- Lifeboat Foundation
- Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios by Nick Bostrom
- Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development by Nick Bostrom
- How can the human race survive the next hundred years? - question on Yahoo Answers by Stephen Hawking
- Why the future doesn't need us by Bill Joy
- It Was Fun While It Lasted by Martin Rees
- Biowar for Dummies by Paul Boutin
- Accelerating Future - regularly updated blog that discusses existential risks
