This post outlines activities at the Future of Humanity Institute during July, August and September 2016. We published three new papers, attended several conferences, hired Prof. William MacAskill, hosted four interns and one summer research fellow, and made progress in a number of research areas.
On long timescales, where is humanity headed? What are the big uncertainties? What does that mean for decisions today? In this series of lectures, we will tackle these issues, and explore the questions that feed into them. Many are multidisciplinary, and progress often draws on knowledge and tools from economics and other sciences, philosophy, and mathematics.
This paper considers whether we will eventually be able to colonize other stars.
Dr. Anders Sandberg, on the Oxford Martin School blog: …unaccountable surveillance is much easier turned into a tool for evil than accountable surveillance: the key question is not who got what information about whom, or even security versus freedom, but whether there is appropriate oversight and safeguards for civil liberties.
“Why is the FHI interested in looking for aliens? Isn’t it the Future of Humanity Institute?”