In the face of existential risks and the possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, the nonprofit Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, and even self-sustaining space colonies for when other prevention strategies fail. To learn more, Betterhumans Deputy Editor Parish Mozdzierz spoke with Lifeboat International Spokesperson Philippe Van Nedervelde.

Betterhumans: How did the formation of the Lifeboat Foundation come about?

Philippe Van Nedervelde: Lifeboat Foundation's founder, Eric Klien, was shaken wide awake by 9/11.  The new reality of what we call (exponentially accelerating) "Asymmetric Destructive Capability" (ADC) fully hit him: ever smaller groups of people can create ever more enormous amounts of damage. And all of this thanks to advances in technology. As a bracelet-wearing cryonicist, he knew of the potentials of nanotechnology (having attended MIT Nanotechnology Group meetings in the late 1980s), and that 9/11 was just a taste of things to come.  Accordingly, the Lifeboat Foundation was incorporated within months of 9/11.

BH: What is the "A-PRIZE," and how does it apply with your mission to prevent existential risks?

PVN: The purpose of the A-PRIZE is to put development of artificial life forms in the open where it should be. Today, many efforts at developing artificial life are not well publicized. The A-PRIZE serves as a clearinghouse for information about the race to "Break the Carbon Barrier." With mega-universities and companies racing to create nonbiological life, now is the time for such a clearinghouse.

The A-PRIZE is awarded to the person or organization responsible for creating an animat/artificial life form with an emphasis on the safety of the researchers, public, and environment or the person or organization who shows that an animat/artificial life form has been created. (The second case is to uncover unpublicized or unsafe projects.)

It applies to our mission as it both encourages the use of safety measures in this ongoing international effort to create nonbiological life and also offers rewards to uncover unsafe efforts.  Unsafe efforts could devastate our biosphere, and without the spotlight of the A-PRIZE to uncover them, humanity could be in danger.

BH: Currently, Lifeboat Foundation has 23 programs devised to fight against various existential risks, including asteroid strikes, bioweapons, nanoweapons, nuclear war, internet attacks, climate change, extinctions and collapse of plant and animal life diversity, unfriendly AI, gamma ray bursts, unexpected solar activity, etc.  Do you ever fear that working on such a large number of diverse risks, that you're losing the ability to focus your efforts on one or two of the larger or more probable dangers? Is there a priority in how your group is addressing these risks?

PVN: Baden Powell's great motto was "Be Prepared." Accordingly, we find that we want to prepare for any eventuality which may do all or most of us in. You cannot know ahead of time which x-risk will prove to be our final undoing. Both individual death as well as species-level extinction can come like a thief in the night, totally out of left of field. We are in the survival business, so our mindset and resolute determination is to leave no stone unturned to budge our survival odds in our favor. We inevitably adopt a rational and eminently pragmatic approach to this.

I have taken the initiative for a new program or project which we now have in preparation called ETO, short for Existential Threat Outlook. The goal of this is to track the evolving statistical probabilities of all the variants of existential risks ("x-risks") that we are looking at. The intention is to update our ETO chart in real-time. This ETO chart will inform and drive our prioritizations in terms of allocation of efforts and resources. We obviously want to allocate efforts according to the statistical probability and temporal proximity of x-risks.

Note that preparations for some x-risks takes more resources than others though, so there is no linear relationship between the imminence of a particular x-risk and the efforts we allocate to its prevention. Also, bear in mind that some programs deal with multiple x-risks in one fell swoop. Some of these are infrastructure type programs and obviously would require great amounts of resources.

Finally, also consider that we pick our battles taking into account what other organizations are doing. Whenever we find that another organization is doing something we agree is very necessary and is doing that faster and better than us, then we naturally do not duplicate those efforts. This is the case for instance with what SIAI is doing regarding the possibility of humanity-unfriendly AI. We also endorse what organizations such as the Foresight Nanotech Institute and the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology are doing.

Unless we find that what such organizations are doing is too little too late, or ill-advised or otherwise unhelpful in our opinion, we will simply support those organizations to the very best of our ability instead of doing what they are already fully focused on. Ideally, we would love there to be at least one active and effective organization totally dedicated to dealing with each individual x-risk. In that case, our role would be blissfully reduced to being an information clearinghouse, a forum... with possibly some coordinating roles. As things stand, we are far from such a situation though.

BH: With which programs have you realized the most success so far to date?

PVN: That depends on what you consider success here. In our view, the programs that have made our current programs list are the ones that have become the most fleshed out and therefore the most successful to date. They are: AsteroidShield, BioShield, InternetShield, NanoShield, SecurityPreserver, and Space Habitats. To date, we have been working on just developing position papers for programs. This is to change shortly though.

BH: Are there some risks you feel are still not getting enough attention, despite your efforts?

PVN: We feel that people generally don't take future risks and x-risks in particular seriously enough. Unfortunately, this is probably a common failing of civilizations. Per Fermi's paradox, this is likely the cause of the fact that-as far as astronomical evidence has enabled us to determine to date-we live in a universe devoid of intelligent life except for our own. So NONE of the future risks / x-risks are getting enough attention, whether they are bioweapons, nanoweapons, or other threats.

BH: Some observers consider the Lifeboat Foundation as not being pro-governments, pro-technology, pro-privacy. Is this the case?

PVN: Not at all. On the contrary. If those observers would give our publications on our website an appropriately close reading, they would understand that we are explicitly, emphatically, enthusiastically in favor of responsibly developed technology, of effective democratic governments and transnational institutions...even of personal privacy to the extent it can be preserved without jeopardizing the security of the rest of us. Again: we are in the survival business. So we are in favor of anything which will demonstrably be of significant help towards achieving this goal. Within reason, we will try anything that helps increase our probability of long-term survival.

At the same time, it stands to reason that, when and if we are justifiably skeptical about the effectiveness of something in this regard (meaning what other people are doing), and unsure as to whether it is part of the problem more than it is part of the solution, we will simply give it the benefit of the doubt until we become more sure...and will not emphasize such in the allocation of our resources at any given time towards the realization of our goals.

BH: What role does Lifeboat have in the upcoming Transvision 2007 conference (from July 23 to July 26 in Chicago)?

PVN: The focus of the Lifeboat Foundation is the theme of this years' Transvision. Accordingly, we will be prominently present in a variety of ways. One major way is by virtue of the presence as speakers of no less than 25 members of Lifeboat Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. Basically, it will be wall-to-wall Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board members! In a way, it will be Lifeboat Foundation's own first big conference.

To be precise, our Scientific Advisory Board members Ed Begley, Jr., José Cordeiro, Mike DeMaio, George Dvorsky, James Gardner, Giorgio Gaviraghi, Jerry Glenn, Aubrey de Grey, Barbara Marx Hubbard, James Hughes, Charlie Kam, Ray Kurzweil, Ed Lantz, Michael LaTorra, Max More, Giulio Prisco, Anders Sandberg, Tihamer "Tee" Toth-Fejel, Philippe Van Nedervelde, Natasha Vita-More, Shannon Vyff, Mark A. Walker, Michael Weiner, Kenji Williams, and Eliezer Yudkowsky will be speaking at Transvision 2007 - Transforming Humanity: Innerspace to Outerspace.

(Editor's note: the Lifeboat Foundation has obtained a promotion code for 40% off the event. To get this promotion code, send an email with the subject "Lifeboat Foundation TV07 promotion code" to tv07@lifeboat.com.) 

BH: Are you planning on filming/recording any of your speakers during the conference?

PVN: Yes, all of them... as long as they sign their release form of course.

BH: When would you plan on having the video/audio available on your website?

PVN: As shortly after the conference as technically possible.

BH: Lifeboat is also involved in the X-PRIZE CUP '07 (from October 26 to 28 at the Holloman Air & Space Expo at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico).  What are the details surrounding your EM Launch Competition?

PVN: The EM Launch Competition, as part of our Space Habitats program, will be our first program to be more than a position statement.

We will formally announce in about a week that the EM Launch Competition as described at http://lifeboat.com/ex/em will be featured at the X PRIZE CUP

If you have comments on the proposed Contestant's Contract at http://lifeboat.com/em/em.rtf, please send them to grants@lifeboat.com with the subject "Lifeboat Foundation X Prize Cup 07."

Once this program is formally announced, our next goal will be to make the NanoShield program more than a position statement, and we plan to start working towards fully funding the work of Robert Freitas Jr. and others. We have already raised some funds for his "Thermal Censorship of Ecophagy Study" as we begin to prepare to focus in this area.  You can make donations for this effort at https://lifeboat.com/ex/donations

BH: Any other near-future plans or events?

PVN:  Yes, quite a few. Sergio M.L. Tarrero, Lifeboat's International Director of Audiovisual Communications, is leading a great effort aimed at producing a 100-minute documentary describing x-risks and the various proposals by the Lifeboat Foundation to do something about preventing them completely or, should that fail, at least downgrade their destructive impact to scales of destruction which do not wipe out humanity to the last person. The intention at this moment is to have a worldwide theatrical release of this documentary...and to produce it in at least eight of the most spoken languages of this planet. We also have a series of 30 sec. multilingual TV ads in the works which we hope will similarly contribute to raising worldwide awareness of our foundation's concerns and our proposals regarding what to do about them. So...watch this space!