Biosecurity, longtermism, and global catastrophic biological risks

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the devastating impacts that high-consequence biological events can have on human lives, economic wellbeing, and political stability. While national and global leaders are rightly focused on saving lives and fostering economic recovery, now is also the time to strengthen international capabilities to prevent and respond to future high-consequence biological events – which could match the impact of the current pandemic or cause damage that is much more severe. COVID-19 should prompt global leaders to take bold action to reshape international institutions and make significant investments to reduce future pandemics and globally catastrophic biological risks. In working toward these goals, we must maintain a broad perspective about the potential sources of such risks. While naturally emerging novel pathogens can cause significant harm, engineered or synthesised pathogens have the potential to pose even greater risks. To address these risks, the biosecurity community should work with longtermist communities to prevent catastrophic laboratory accidents with engineered pathogens, and to prevent the exploitation of the legitimate global life science and biotechnology enterprise by malicious actors. It will be equally important to address the root causes of potential future bioweapons development and use by states and other powerful actors – including by strengthening the capabilities of international institutions to prevent and deter these activities. Now is the moment to accelerate progress and build wider coalitions around the shared goals of reducing global catastrophic biological risks and building a safer world now and for the long term.