When the Soviet Union began to fracture in 1991, the world was forced to reckon with the first collapse of a nuclear superpower in history.1 The USSR was home to more than 27,000 nuclear weapons, more than one million citizens working at nuclear facilities, and over 600 metric tons of nuclear fissile materials. [node:read-more:link]
As part of our work on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, we have contracted Good Judgment Inc. to expand its efforts to aggregate, publish, and track forecasts about the COVID-19 pandemic, with the hope that these forecasts can help improve planning by health security professionals and the broader public, limit the spread of the virus, and save lives. [node:read-more:link]
How accurate do long-range (≥10yr) forecasts tend to be, and how much should we rely on them?
As an initial exploration of this question, I sought to study the track record of long-range forecasting exercises from the past. Unfortunately, my key finding so far is that it is difficult to learn much of value from those exercises, for the following reasons: [node:read-more:link]
In February 2018, Open Philanthropy announced new openings for “generalist” Research Analyst (RA) roles, and we have since hired 5 applicants from that hiring round. This was one of our top priorities for 2018.
In this post I summarize our process and some lessons learned. I am hoping that in addition to our general audience, this post might be useful to others looking to hire a similar talent profile, and to potential future generalist RA applicants to Open Philanthropy. [node:read-more:link]
Today, Georgetown University announced our support for the launch of a new think tank dedicated to policy analysis at the intersection of national and international security and emerging technologies. The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) is led by Jason Matheny, former Assistant Director of National Intelligence and Director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the U.S. intelligence community’s research organization.
Read our full grant page here. [node:read-more:link]
