Artificial Multipandemic as the Most Plausible and Dangerous Global Catastrophic Risk Connected with Bioweapons and Synthetic Biology

Abstract

Pandemics have been suggested as global risks many times, but it has been shown that the probability of human extinction due to one pandemic is small, as it will not be able to affect and kill all people, but likely only half, even in the worst cases. Assuming that the probability of the worst pandemic to kill a person is 0.5, and assuming linear interaction between different pandemics, 30 strong pandemics running simultaneously will kill everyone. Such situations cannot happen naturally, but because biotechnology is developing analogously to Moore’s law, it may become possible in the near future (10-50 years from now), because of biohackers, CRISPR, bioprinters, AI-assisted DNA-programing, and weapons of “knowledge-enabled mass destruction” published on the Internet. It could also happened in case of large-scale biological war, or if a rogue country released its entire biological arsenal simultaneously. We also will address other scenarios and risk increasing factors as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Synthetic biology and the ethics of knowledge.T. Douglas & J. Savulescu - 2010 - Journal of Medical Ethics 36 (11):687-693.
Synthetic Biology and Synthetic Knowledge.Christophe Malaterre - 2013 - Biological Theory (8):346–356.
Synthetic Biology, Genome Editing, and the Risk of Bioterrorism.Marko Ahteensuu - 2017 - Science and Engineering Ethics 23 (6):1541-1561.
Editors' Introduction to Special Issue.Ute Deichmann, Michel Morange & Anthony S. Travis - 2012 - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 55 (4):470-472.
Synthetic biology as red herring.Beth Preston - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4b):649-659.
Synthetic Biology: A Challenge to Mechanical Explanations in Biology?Michel Morange - 2012 - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 55 (4):543-553.
Basic science through engineering?: Synthetic modeling and the idea of biology-inspired engineering.Tarja Knuuttila & Andrea Loettgers - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2):158-169.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-01-23

Downloads
661 (#24,462)

6 months
90 (#46,053)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references