SRA 2008 PowerPoint

Global Risk: A Quantitative Analysis
Thomas McCabe
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
[email_address]
[email_address]

Nuclear war
A full-scale nuclear war in 1988, during the height of the Cold War, could be expected to kill around 1,850,000,000 people, or 36% of the world's population.
Source: ”The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War”, by Robert Johnston

Smallpox epidemic
In spite of vaccinations, smallpox killed 300 to 500 million people from 1900 through 1980.
A new smallpox epidemic today could kill up to two billion, or 30% of the population.
Sources: ”Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge”, by David Koplow
” The Nightmare of Bioterrorism”, by Laurie Garrett

Asteroid strike
An asteroid two kilometers across hitting Earth would cause massive tsunamis, fires, etc., and would kill around one to two billion people.
Such a strike occurs, on average, once every million years.
Source: Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts, by Michael Paine

Extinction risks
Genetically engineered supervirus
Global climate runaway feedback loop
Nearby gamma ray burst
Nearby supernova
Environmental collapse
Simulation gets shut down
Rogue artificial intelligence
Molecular nanotechnology accident
Particle accelerator accident

Risk priority equation
P = I * L * R / E
P = risk priority
I = impact of the risk
L = likelihood of the risk
R = how much the risk is reduced
E = effort to reduce the risk

Priority of car crashes
Impact: $100,000
Likelihood: 10% = 0.1
Risk reduction: 50% = 0.5
Effort = 10 hrs.
Risk priority = 100,000 * 0.1 * 0.5 / 10 = 500 $/hr.

Laplace's rule of succession
Given a uniform prior distribution over probabilities, if something has not happened during each of N independent tests, the probability that it will happen during the next test is 1 / (N + 2).

GRB probability
There are 100 billion galaxies, and GRBs happen around a hundred times a year, so the chances of one happening in our galaxy this year is around one in a billion.
Source: Deadly astronomical event not likely to happen in our galaxy, study finds, press release by Oregon State University

GRB probability
If a GRB does happen in our galaxy, it would have to be within three thousand light years to cause serious damage.
The galaxy is around a hundred thousand light years across, so the odds of this are roughly 1:250, for a combined probability of 1:250,000,000,000.

Inductive GRB probability
We know that all life hasn't been killed by a GRB in the past four billion years, so by Laplace's rule, the odds of us being killed next year are 1 / (4,000,000,000 + 2), or 1:4,000,000,002.

Nuclear war probability
Martin Hellman's rough estimate: 1% per year, or around 10% per decade.
Inductive estimate: 1 / (59 + 2) = 1:61, or around 1.6%.
Source: Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence, by Martin Hellman

Chance of smallpox outbreak
To my knowledge, no studies have been done on this.
Inductive probability: 1 / (29 + 2) = 1:31, or around 3.2% per year.

Asteroid impact frequency

Risk mitigation
Even if two risks have the same impact and probability, one may be much easier to prevent.
Technological risks are always easiest to prevent when they are new, and the technology is still being developed.

Molecular nanotechnology

Molecular nanotechnology
Ability to manufacture large numbers of weapons at minimal cost, and destroy or conquer the world.
An MNT accident may wind up consuming the entire planet, including us, in a search for more raw materials.

Orders of magnitude

Comparison of relative risk

List of dangerous machines
Lawnmower
Boeing 747 passenger jet

List of dangerous machines
Lawnmower
Boeing 747 passenger jet
Quartz wristwatch
Saturn V rocket

Availability heuristic
People tend to judge how dangerous things are by how often they hear about them, either personally or through the media.
Popular estimates of causes of death are highly correlated with selective newspaper reporting.
Source: Newspaper coverage of causes of death, by Barbara Combs and Paul Slovic

Number of Google News hits
Grey goo nanotechnology: 527
” Asteroid impact”: 1,690
LHC destroy world: 7,880
Smallpox outbreak: 9,940
Anna Nicole Smith: 66,600
” Nuclear war”: 84,700

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