Announcing the Biosecurity Forecasting Tournament

Abstract

This report estimates the cost-effectiveness of efforts to detect near-Earth-objects (NEOs) and mitigate the risk of impact with Earth. It is argued that such efforts are cost-effective under two distinct assumptions about the potential consequences of an impact: (1) the “catastrophic impact assumption”, where an impact would result in significant loss of life but not human extinction, and (2) the “existential impact assumption”, where an impact could plausibly lead to human extinction. The report finds that past efforts to detect NEOs have been highly cost-effective under both assumptions, even when using conservative estimates of the benefits of such efforts. The report also considers potential future extensions of NEO-detection efforts, such as further asteroid tracking and the inclusion of comets, and argues that these extensions could also be cost-effective. – AI-generated abstract.