Global Risk Behavioral Research Group
The Global Risk Behavioral Research Group (led by Lucius Caviola and Joshua Lewis at NYU) focuses on the question, ‘What psychological tendencies drive people to (accidentally) cause, or fail to prevent, enormous harm and global catastrophes?’ with a special focus on harms caused through the use of advanced technology.
GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISK
A global catastrophic risk (GCR) is an event that poses a risk of major harm on a global scale. They can involve many people dying, large reductions in technological capabilities, and destabilization of political systems. Examples are biological weapons, pandemics, nuclear war, and uncontrolled artificial intelligence. Technological advances are increasing the risk of such a global catastrophe.
ROLE OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH
The stakes of technological progress are extremely high. Such progress should be pursued cautiously and deliberately to ensure its safety and long-run sustainability.
But due to human psychology, we should not expect people to take this approach by default. Human psychology is not calibrated for indirect, one-off, global, unpredictable, and large-scale risks. This leads us to mismanage, overlook, or even accidentally cause technological risks. There are many predictable, high-stakes mistakes that we could make and may even be making today.
Behavioral and psychological research can help reduce the likelihood of a global catastrophe by enabling people to understand and prioritize the risks.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Some of our key questions include:
How do people estimate and interpret GCRs?
Are people concerned warning of low probability high magnitude risks could have reputational costs?
Do people believe powerful decision-makers (e.g., government) prioritize reducing the biggest risks more than they actually do?
Do people actively increase GCR because they care about other values and don’t care enough to avoid it?