IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/ppat00/1007286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inoculating science against potential pandemics and information hazards

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin M Esvelt

Abstract

The recent de novo assembly of horsepox is an instructive example of an information hazard: published methods enabling poxvirus synthesis led to media coverage spelling out the implications, efficiently disseminating true information that might be used to cause harm. Whether or not the benefits justified the risks, the horsepox saga provides ample reason to upgrade the current system for screening synthesized DNA for hazardous sequences, which does not cover the majority of firms and cannot reliably prevent the assembly of potentially pandemic pathogens. An upgraded system might leverage one-way encryption to confidentially scrutinize virtually all commercial production by a cooperative international network of servers whose integrity can be verified by third parties. Funders could support participating institutions to ease the transition or outright subsidize the market to make clean DNA cheaper, while boycotts by journals, institutions, and funders could ensure compliance and require hardware-level locks on future DNA synthesizers. However, the underlying problem is that security and safety discussions among experts typically follow potentially hazardous events rather than anticipating them. Changing norms and incentives to favor preregistration and advisory peer review of planned experiments could test alternatives to the current closeted research model in select areas of science. Because the fields of synthetic mammalian virology and especially gene drive research involve technologies that could be unilaterally deployed and may self-replicate in the wild, they are compelling candidates for initial trials of early-stage peer review.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin M Esvelt, 2018. "Inoculating science against potential pandemics and information hazards," PLOS Pathogens, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-7, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:ppat00:1007286
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1007286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1007286
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1007286&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007286?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nick Bostrom, 2013. "Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 4(1), pages 15-31, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vladimir A. Masch, 2017. "¡°Shifting the Paradigm¡± in Superintelligence," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 8, pages 17-30, May.
    2. Baum, Seth D. & Handoh, Itsuki C., 2014. "Integrating the planetary boundaries and global catastrophic risk paradigms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 13-21.
    3. Tom Hobson & Olaf Corry, 2023. "Existential security: Safeguarding humanity or globalising power?," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(4), pages 633-637, September.
    4. Christian Tarsney & Teruji Thomas, 2020. "Non-Additive Axiologies in Large Worlds," Papers 2010.06842, arXiv.org.
    5. Rasmus Karlsson, 2021. "Learning in the Anthropocene," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-11, June.
    6. Seth D. Baum, 2023. "Assessing natural global catastrophic risks," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 115(3), pages 2699-2719, February.
    7. Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2022. "Future Design for Sustainable Nature and Societies," Working Papers SDES-2022-1, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Jan 2022.
    8. Huttunen, Henri & Sivula, Oskari, 2023. "Moral adherence enhancement and the case of long-distance space missions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Nathan Alexander Sears, 2020. "Existential Security: Towards a Security Framework for the Survival of Humanity," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 11(2), pages 255-266, April.
    10. Simon Friederich & Jonathan Symons, 2023. "Operationalising sustainability? Why sustainability fails as an investment criterion for safeguarding the future," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(1), pages 61-71, February.
    11. Antonio SANDU & Loredana VLAD, 2018. "Beyond Technological Singularity-the Posthuman Condition," Postmodern Openings, Editura Lumen, Department of Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 91-108, March.
    12. Yew-Kwang Ng, 2016. "The Importance of Global Extinction in Climate Change Policy," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(3), pages 315-322, September.
    13. James P. Walsh, 2019. "Who Will it Take for Business to Improve Lives? The “Man” in the Mirror," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 111-117, July.
    14. Tung Manh Ho & Hong Kong Nguyen-To & Thu-Trang Vuong & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2017. "Social Network Sustainability Metrics: A Study of Co-authoring Behaviors in the Social Sciences, Using 2008-2017 Scopus Data for Vietnam," Working Papers CEB 17-027, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Tung Manh Ho & Hong Kong T. Nguyen & Thu-Trang Vuong & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2017. "On the Sustainability of Co-Authoring Behaviors in Vietnamese Social Sciences: A Preliminary Analysis of Network Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-21, November.
    16. Christoph M. Rheinberger & Nicolas Treich, 2017. "Attitudes Toward Catastrophe," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 609-636, July.
    17. Kovic, Marko & Rauchfleisch, Adrian & Caspar, Christian, 2018. "Global risks and population policy," SocArXiv y4zm5, Center for Open Science.
    18. Nick Bostrom, 2017. "Strategic Implications of Openness in AI Development," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(2), pages 135-148, May.
    19. Christopher Nathan & Keith Hyams, 2022. "Global policymakers and catastrophic risk," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 55(1), pages 3-21, March.
    20. C. E. Richards & R. C. Lupton & J. M. Allwood, 2021. "Re-framing the threat of global warming: an empirical causal loop diagram of climate change, food insecurity and societal collapse," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1-19, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:ppat00:1007286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plospathogens (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.