Or: “Why EA biosecurity epistemics are whack”The effective altruism (EA) biosecurity community focuses on reducing the risks associated with global biological catastrophes (GCBRs). This includes preparing for pandemics, improving global surveillance, and developing technologies to mitigate the risks of engineered pathogens. While the work of this community is important, there are significant challenges to developing good epistemics, or practices for acquiring and evaluating knowledge, in this area.One major challenge is the issue of infohazards. Infohazards are ideas or information that, if widely disseminated, could cause harm. In the context of biosecurity, this could mean that knowledge of specific pathogens or their capabilities could be used to create bioweapons. As a result, members of the EA biosecurity community are often cautious about sharing information, particularly in online forums where it could be easily disseminated.  [1]The issue of infohazards is not straightforward. Even senior biosecurity professionals may have different thresholds for what they [...]---Outline:(01:57) Challenges for cause and intervention prioritisation(04:01) Challenges for transparent and trustworthy advocacy(06:06) What are known best practices?The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.---
First published:
August 5th, 2023

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3a6QWDhxYTz5dEMag/how-can-we-improve-infohazard-governance-in-ea-biosecurity
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