a collaboration between Stanford faculty and students dedicated to mitigating global catastrophic risks (GCRs). Our goal is to foster engagement from students and professors to produce meaningful work aiming to preserve the future of humanity by providing skill, knowledge development, networking, and professional pathways for Stanford community members interested in pursuing GCR reduction. [emphasis added]
And they write:
What is a Global Catastrophic Risk?
We think of global catastrophic risks (GCRs) as risks that could cause the collapse of human civilization or even the extinction of the human species.
That is much closer to a definition of an existential risk (as long as we assume that the collapse is not recovered from) than of an global catastrophic risk. Given that fact and the clash between the term the initiative uses in its name and the term it uses when describing what theyâll focus on, it appears this initiative is conflating these two terms/âconcepts.
This is unfortunate, and could lead to confusion, given that there are many events that would be global catastrophes without being existential catastrophes. An example would be a pandemic that kills hundreds of millions but that doesnât cause civilizational collapse, or that causes a collapse humanity later fully recovers from. (Furthermore, there may be existential catastrophes that arenât âglobal catastrophesâ in the standard sense, such as âplateauing â progress flattens out at a level perhaps somewhat higher than the present level but far below technological maturityâ (Bostrom).)
(I should note that I have positive impressions of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (which this initiative is a part of), that Iâm very glad to see that this initiative has been set up, and that I expect theyâll do very valuable work. Iâm merely critiquing their use of terms.)
There is now a Stanford Existential Risk Initiative, which (confusingly) describes itself as:
And they write:
That is much closer to a definition of an existential risk (as long as we assume that the collapse is not recovered from) than of an global catastrophic risk. Given that fact and the clash between the term the initiative uses in its name and the term it uses when describing what theyâll focus on, it appears this initiative is conflating these two terms/âconcepts.
This is unfortunate, and could lead to confusion, given that there are many events that would be global catastrophes without being existential catastrophes. An example would be a pandemic that kills hundreds of millions but that doesnât cause civilizational collapse, or that causes a collapse humanity later fully recovers from. (Furthermore, there may be existential catastrophes that arenât âglobal catastrophesâ in the standard sense, such as âplateauing â progress flattens out at a level perhaps somewhat higher than the present level but far below technological maturityâ (Bostrom).)
For further discussion, see Clarifying existential risks and existential catastrophes.
(I should note that I have positive impressions of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (which this initiative is a part of), that Iâm very glad to see that this initiative has been set up, and that I expect theyâll do very valuable work. Iâm merely critiquing their use of terms.)