Stanford Existential Risks Conference 2022

Together, we can work to reduce existential risks.

Event audience
This conference is aimed primarily at faculty, graduate students, and professionals working in existential-risk related fields. We will also reserve spots for others (e.g. undergraduates) who demonstrate significant familiarity/interest in issues related to existential risks.

Registration
The application form is here and should only take a few minutes to fill out. Accepted attendees will receive a registration link to the live event at a later date. The conference is entirely free of charge and will take place virtually.

Invite your colleagues
If you know someone who is a good fit for this event, please invite them to apply. We’re particularly keen to reach other academics, professionals, and highly engaged students interested in careers and research relating to existential risks.

Key goals of the conference

Creating connections: among potential collaborators, funders and grantees, employers and employees, mentors and mentees, and others.

Creating common understanding: of the importance and magnitude of existential risks, of longtermism — making safeguarding the long-term future an academic and ethical priority, and of the existing field of existential risk mitigation.

Creating opportunities: for further engagement through research, careers and internships, collaborations, grants and funding, and more.

Conference Topics

The conference will be comprised of events discussing existential risks that threaten the future of humanity as well as methods of addressing these risks. Topics include:

• Engineered/global pandemics and risks from synthetic biology
• Risks from advanced artificial intelligence and alignment proposals
• Nuclear winter and catastrophic risks from nuclear weapons
• Extreme climate change and solutions (geo-engineering, policy, etc.)
• ​​​​​​​Governance, regulation, and deployment of transformative technologies

• Existential risk field-building, education, careers, research + funding opportunities, and more!

Conference Tools

Gather.town

We will be using Gather.town to simulate a virtual conference space, where you can walk around and mingle with other attendees. The Gather space will be open from the start of the conference through several hours past the end. We will also be hosting various social events on Gather, including discussion sessions, trivia, and the Fermi estimate competition.

Here are some tips to make the most out of your virtual experience:

• In large conversations, please make sure you mute yourself if you are not talking!

• Find other attendees with similar interests in the cause-area discussion rooms for AI, Nuclear, Bio, and Climate/Environment.

• Utilize private spaces for extended conversations without accidental interruptions from passers-by.

• You can freely join or leave group conversations, but do be respectful if people are having one-on-one conversations.

• Find specific attendees using the panel on the left, and use the “Locate on Map” feature.

• Take a break and play some board games in the lounge.

• Explore the entire space — there are some cool hidden areas to discover!

Absolutely no inappropriate behavior, including harassment or discrimination of any kind, will be tolerated. If you have a concern or would like to report another user, please contact us directly via a direct message on Slack or an email to seri-contact@stanford.edu. Please note also that this space is only for admitted attendees of the conference, and is not open to the public.

It’s difficult to incorporate an engaging social element into a virtual conference, but we are optimistic about Gather — and we hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised by its functionality. We shall work through technical difficulties as a community. We are looking forward to meeting you virtually!

For further help including instructional videos, please visit our Gather.town tutorial page: