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10 big projects for reducing bio x-risk

defensesindepth.bio · 4,173 words · saved by 1 readers

The field of people working on reducing bio x-risk is distressingly small. I sketch out 10 big, urgent projects I'd be excited for new people to come work on and own.

Engineered pathogens pose a grave threat to society, plausibly constituting an existential risk [1] (‘x-risk’) to humanity. [2] Yet remarkably few people are working full-time on this problem. By my count, there are ~160 people on the planet whose full-time job is reducing bio x-risk. [3] This entire group could fit on a single short-haul flight. As one point of comparison, something like 200+ organizations are working on AI safety – a problem area that is neglected in its own right (relative to its scale). [4] This is bad. We have a short bench, and only limited time to solve this problem: AI

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