The Four Pillars: A Hypothesis for Countering Catastrophic Biological Risk — EA Forum

Biological risks are more severe than has been widely appreciated. Recent discussions of mirror bacteria highlight an extreme scenario: a single orga…

Biological risks are more severe than has been widely appreciated. Recent discussions of mirror bacteria highlight an extreme scenario: a single organism that could infect and kill humans, plants, and animals, exhibits environmental persistence in soil or dust, and might be capable of spreading worldwide within several months. In the worst-case scenario, this could pose an existential risk to humanity, especially if the responses/countermeasures were inadequate. Less severe pandemic pathogens could still cause hundreds of millions (or billions) of casualties if they were engineered to cause…

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