I found the original website for Prof. Lipsitch’s “Cambridge Working Group” from 2014 at http://www.cambridgeworkinggroup.org/ . While the website does not focus exclusively on gain-of-function, this was certainly a recurring theme in his public talks about this.
The list of signatories (which I believe has not been updated since 2016) includes several members of our community (apologies to anyone who I have missed):
Toby Ord, Oxford University
Sean O hEigeartaigh, University of Oxford
Daniel Dewey, University of Oxford
Anders Sandberg, Oxford University
Anders Huitfeldt, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Viktoriya Krakovna, Harvard University PhD student
Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy, University of Louisville
David Manheim, 1DaySooner
Interestingly, there was an opposing group arguing in favor of this kind of research, at http://www.scientistsforscience.org/. I do not recognize a single name on their list of signatories
My best guess is that it’s like in math where applied researchers are lower status then theoretical researchers and thus everyone wants to be seen as addressing the theoretical issues.
Infohazards are a great theoretical topic, discussing generalized methods to let researchers buy insurance for side effects of their research is a great theoretical topic as well.
Given that Lipitch didn’t talk directly about the gain of function research but tried to talk on a higher level to speak about more generalized solutions at EA Global Boston in 2017 he might have also felt social pressure to talk about the issue in a more theoretical manner then in a more applied manner where he told people about the risks of gain of function research.
If we would have instead said on stage at EA Global Boston in 2017 “I believe that the risk of gain of function research is between 0.05% and 0.6% per fulltime researcher” this would have been awkward and create conflict that’s uncomfortable. Talking about it in a more theoretical manner on the other hand allow a listener just to say “He Lipitch seems like a really smart guy”.
I don’t want to say that as a critique of Lipitch, given that he actually did the best work. I however do think EA Global having a social structure that gets people to act that way is a systematic flaw.
I found the original website for Prof. Lipsitch’s “Cambridge Working Group” from 2014 at http://www.cambridgeworkinggroup.org/ . While the website does not focus exclusively on gain-of-function, this was certainly a recurring theme in his public talks about this.
The list of signatories (which I believe has not been updated since 2016) includes several members of our community (apologies to anyone who I have missed):
Toby Ord, Oxford University
Sean O hEigeartaigh, University of Oxford
Daniel Dewey, University of Oxford
Anders Sandberg, Oxford University
Anders Huitfeldt, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Viktoriya Krakovna, Harvard University PhD student
Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy, University of Louisville
David Manheim, 1DaySooner
Interestingly, there was an opposing group arguing in favor of this kind of research, at http://www.scientistsforscience.org/. I do not recognize a single name on their list of signatories
That’s interesting. That leaves the question of why the FHI mostly stopped caring about it after 2016.
Past that point https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Lewis_et_al-2019-Risk_Analysis.pdf and https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/C-Nelson-Engineered-Pathogens.pdf seem to be about gain of function research while completely ignoring the issue of potential lab leaks and only talking about it as an interesting biohazard topic.
My best guess is that it’s like in math where applied researchers are lower status then theoretical researchers and thus everyone wants to be seen as addressing the theoretical issues.
Infohazards are a great theoretical topic, discussing generalized methods to let researchers buy insurance for side effects of their research is a great theoretical topic as well.
Given that Lipitch didn’t talk directly about the gain of function research but tried to talk on a higher level to speak about more generalized solutions at EA Global Boston in 2017 he might have also felt social pressure to talk about the issue in a more theoretical manner then in a more applied manner where he told people about the risks of gain of function research.
If we would have instead said on stage at EA Global Boston in 2017 “I believe that the risk of gain of function research is between 0.05% and 0.6% per fulltime researcher” this would have been awkward and create conflict that’s uncomfortable. Talking about it in a more theoretical manner on the other hand allow a listener just to say “He Lipitch seems like a really smart guy”.
I don’t want to say that as a critique of Lipitch, given that he actually did the best work. I however do think EA Global having a social structure that gets people to act that way is a systematic flaw.
What do you think about that thesis?