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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Request for proposals: Help Open Philanthropy quantify biological risk, published by djbinder on May 12, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Open Philanthropy is seeking proposals from those interested in contributing to a research project informing and estimating biosecurity-relevant numbers and ‘base rates’. We welcome proposals from both research organizations and individuals (at any career stage, including undergraduate and postgraduate students). The work can be structured via contract or grant. The application deadline is May 29th. Background How likely is a biological catastrophe? Do the biggest risks come from states or terrorists? Accidents or intentional attacks? These parameters are directly decision-relevant for Open Philanthropy’s biosecurity and pandemic preparedness strategy. They determine the degree to which we prioritize biosecurity compared to other causes, and inform how we prioritize different biosecurity interventions (e.g. do we focus on lab safety to reduce accidents, or push for better DNA synthesis screening to impede terrorists?). One way of estimating biological risk that we do not recommend is ‘threat assessment’—investigating various ways that one could cause a biological catastrophe. This approach may be valuable in certain situations, but the information hazards involved make it inherently risky. In our view, the harms outweigh the benefits in most cases. A second, less risky approach is to abstract away most biological details and instead consider general ‘base rates’. The aim is to estimate the likelihood of a biological attack or accident using historical data and base rates of analogous scenarios, and of risk factors such as warfare or terrorism. A few examples include: Estimating the rate at which states or terrorist groups have historically sought biological, chemical, nuclear, or radiological weapons. Forecasting the risk of great power war over the next 50 years (combining historical data with current geopolitical trends). Estimating the rate at which lab leaks have occurred in state programs. Enumerating possible ‘phase transitions’ that would cause a radical departure from relevant historical base rates, e.g. total collapse of the taboo on biological weapons, such that they become a normal part of military doctrine. This information allows us to better estimate the probability of biological catastrophe in a variety of scenarios, with some hypothetical concrete examples described in the next section. The biosecurity team at Open Philanthropy (primarily Damon) is currently working on developing such models. However, given the broad scope of the work, we would be keen to see additional research on this question. While we are interested in independent models that attempt to estimate the overall risk of a global biological catastrophe (GCBR), we are particularly keen on projects that simply collect huge amounts of relevant historical data, or thoroughly explore one or more sub-questions. One aspect of this approach we find particularly exciting is that it is threat-agnostic and thus relevant across a wide range of scenarios, foreseen and unforeseen. It also helps us to think about the misuse of other dangerous transformative technologies, such as atomically precise manufacturing or AI. We are therefore calling for applications from anyone who would be interested in spending up to the next four months (or possibly longer) helping us better understand these aspects of biorisk. We could imagine successful proposals from many different backgrounds—for example, a history undergraduate looking for a summer research project, a postdoc or superforecaster looking for part-time work, or a quantitative research organization with an entire full-time team. What is our goal? We are interested in supporting work that will help us better quanti...