A Step Forward in Mitigating Existential Threats

It’s no secret that the world is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected. And as our societies become more technologically advanced, the risks of a global catastrophe become greater.自然灾害或者严重的气候变化在世界的一个地方，可以很快成为另一个人的人道主义危机，空降病毒可以在几天内遍布全球，并且恐怖袭击可以在边界上产生连锁反应。近年来，我们看到了许多这样的主要灾难（无论是自然而人造的），对世界各地的社区产生了毁灭性的影响。从飓风和地震到网络攻击和大流行，这些事件向我们展示了我们对自然力量以及我们自己的技术造成的危险的脆弱性。然而，尽管存在明显和现在的危险，但政府似乎没有准备好管理任何这些风险。

Fortunately, top lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC), Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), have introduced legislation—《全球灾难性风险准备法》—that would establish an interagency taskforce to study how the U.S. government should be prepared to mitigate and manage such risks. This bipartisan legislation would ensure that our government has the tools and resources necessary to identify, assess, and respond to these risks in a coordinated and effective manner and would be the first critical step towards a national preparedness plan.

In recent years, the U.S. government has been caught flat-footed by a number of global catastrophic risks. From pandemics to climate change, the U.S. has been slow to respond to these existential threats. While the probability of some of these events happening may be low, the potential consequences are far too severe to ignore.

Given the potentially devastating consequences of these events, it is essential that the U.S. government is prepared to manage them should they occur. Moreover, the cost of preparing for them is dwarfed by the cost of doing nothing and being caught unprepared when one of them does occur. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic has cost the United States over$16 trillion, while the White House estimates it needsmerely $65 billion帮助防止下一个大流行。同样，一个analysis by Deloittefound that if the U.S. does not decarbonize over the next 50 years, it would cost the economy nearly $14.5 trillion but the U.S. economy would gain $3 trillion if it rapidly decarbonizes during that time. But to prevent such catastrophic events from happening requires an all-of-government approach to mitigation and preparedness—a gap this legislation aims to fill.

除了在缺乏协调的全球反应中等待发生的自然灾难外，美国政府必须准备缓解和管理的人为灾难性风险。1939年，爱因斯坦（Einstein）写信给罗斯福总统，警告他有可能设计出可能导致强大炸弹的核链反应。几年后，创建了这些炸弹。在十多年的时间里，已经产生了足够多的人，这是历史上第一次，少数决策者可以摧毁文明。人类进入了一个新时代，我们不仅面对自然环境中的存在风险，而且还面临着我们可能能够消灭自己的可能性。这项被认为是“新兴”的技术在1939年几乎导致了23年后的人类破坏。

It is difficult to forecast what emerging technologies may develop in the future. Emerging technologies are quite literally emerging. When they are realized, they develop rapidly and the full extent of their capabilities is often not known for years or even decades. Just last year, The Department of Justice起诉数名FSB官员因为他们参与了一项多阶段运动，在该运动中，他们可以远程进入关键基础设施，包括美国核电站种植恶意软件。2005年，保罗·克鲁格曼（Paul Krugman）可能会嘲笑可能性互联网被用作引起核崩溃的武器。然而，可以使用类似的方式使用机器学习技术来拥有饥饿的独裁者，以扩大其权力并损害其他国家的大量人口。生物恐怖主义者也可以使用一种可以识别超级细菌治疗的算法，以发现可能逃避任何这种治疗方法的病毒菌株。因此，即使今天被认为是一个低概率事件，也只有有意义的事情，为可能发生的事情做准备。

While lawmakers fuss over the finer details of the Global Catastrophic Risk Preparedness Act, it is also essential to look at the next steps. If an interagency task force works to develop an assessment of the current state of preparedness and implementation plans to prepare the U.S. government for these risks, it would also be responsible for ensuring that these plans are regularly updated and tested, so that we can be as prepared as possible when—not if, as we see with climate change—one of these events happens. Some may argue that this is unnecessary bureaucracy—but given the stakes involved, we cannot afford to take chances. The time to act is now, before it’s too late.