Skip to content

Stuart Russell | UC Berkeley

"...nothing can be done if knowledge and expertise are discarded in favor of political expediency and prejudice..."
Published:
April 13, 2020
Author:
Kirsten Gronlund

Contents

Stuart Russell | UC Berkeley

Professor of Computer Science & Engineering

What advice do you have for people coping with this crisis?

Get information and follow advice from reliable, expert sources — primarily
infectious disease experts and public-health epidemiologists.

What do we need to do to be prepared for future pandemics?

We can analyze what went wrong this time and put in place the necessary resources and
plans to avoid these problems next time. Clearly there has to be a capability to roll out testing
at scale and to provide surge capacity for hospitals. We also need much more sophisticated
and flexible models that capture the patterns of contacts and transmission at an individual level, can predict the effects of different kinds of intervention, etc.
It seems that the best model of the US was the one created at Imperial College London, which should be concern for US policy makers.

However, nothing can be done if knowledge and expertise are discarded in favor
of political expediency and prejudice. Undoubtedly there will be a massive public relations war after
the pandemic dies down, to try to blame events on anyone but those responsible.
Indeed, this war is already beginning, with attacks on China, doctors, journalists,
old people, epidemiologists, etc.

What can we learn from COVID-19 about other catastrophic risks like nuclear war, AI, etc?

Bad things happen, so be prepared. Just because a risk is not certain, that doesn’t mean we don’t prepare for it
or attempt to prevent it. We have spare tires in our cars in case of a flat. We have a military in case of a war.
The costs are massive if and when the catastrophe occurs, while the costs of prevention and mitigation may be relatively tiny.

This content was first published at futureoflife.org on April 13, 2020.

About the Future of Life Institute

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a global non-profit with a team of 20+ full-time staff operating across the US and Europe. FLI has been working to steer the development of transformative technologies towards benefitting life and away from extreme large-scale risks since its founding in 2014. Find out more about our mission or explore our work.

Our content

Related content

Other posts about 

If you enjoyed this content, you also might also be interested in:

Yi Zeng | Chinese Academy of Sciences/BAAI

"...we are tightly interconnected not only with each other, but also with the environment, and we are only a portion of the ecosystem. Continuous efforts should be made to make sure our connections to each other and the environment are in positive and sustainable ways..."
April 29, 2020

Anthony Aguirre | UC Santa Cruz

"...I suggest we try very, very hard to think of some way to provide a reward system for tragedies averted, and not just for bravely persevering through them (as important and noble as that is) when they occur..."
April 20, 2020

Emilia Javorsky | FLI

"...Prevention as the only path to a good outcome is at the core of each of the catastrophic risks, and it's my hope that a silver lining of COVID-19 will be renewed interest, efforts and resources in risk mitigation and safety engineering..."
April 20, 2020

Huw Price | University of Cambridge/CSER

"...There's something structural here that we need to fix, or find ways to work around..."
April 20, 2020

Sign up for the Future of Life Institute newsletter

Join 40,000+ others receiving periodic updates on our work and cause areas.
cloudmagnifiercrossarrow-up linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram