A few short articles about what Risk-First is all about
Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy
Nature Risk Rising, the first report in the NNE series, explains how nature-related risks matter to business, why they must be urgently mainstreamed into risk management strategies and why it is vital to prioritize the protection of nature’s assets and services within the broader global economic growth agenda.
The Four Big Risks | Silicon Valley Product Group
In the first edition of my book, INSPIRED, I discussed how successful products are valuable, usable and feasible, where I defined “valuable” as both valuable to customers and valuable to your business. While it’s easy to remember these three attributes, over the years I’ve come to believe that it was obscuring some pretty serious risks and...
The Art of Taking Smart Risks
Good risk can bring joy to life, but Americans are up against forces that profit from the reckless kind.
From risk to flourishing: Seeds for responding to a complex world
Flourishing is the actualization of all beings toward their good -- not only individually but collectively, answering the question of `how do we live well with and for each other?'. In science as in society, the tendency to reduce, segregate, specialize, and settle has precluded embracing the concept of flourishing as a guiding principle. We aim to identify an approach to risk science research that promotes the flourishing of socio-ecological-technological systems (SETS). We discuss the normative role of an orientation toward flourishing for the field of risk science. We explore the possibility that (risk) science could be done in a way that is capable of pointing society toward a different future, one more resilient and more capable of flourishing. Our exploration mirrors the conversational nature of flourishing itself: examine ideologies traditionally believed to be rigidly in opposition and consider what emerges in the space(s) and conversation between them. We call this a dialectical approach. Within this paradigm grounded in conversation, pluralism, and pragmatism, we revisit three longstanding tensions in risk science: physical$|$social, determinism$|$uncertainty, contextuality$|$generality. Although these tensions are not new, revisiting them together through the lens of complexity science, and with explicit attention to the normative commitments that shape risk research, reveals underexplored possibilities for the field. Examining them in conversation with the other allows us to explore the provisional seeds for what might be termed complex risk science: interdependence, responsivity, participation, pluralism, openness, and ongoingness. Enacting the dialectical paradigm towards a risk science for a flourishing world will depend on creating collectives toward complex risk science, supporting them with skillfully governed commons, and centering care in our research.
The Extinction Risk Preference Cascade: Quotes
These are quotes from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google employees, in the wake of Jacob Coxon’s warnings, in which the employees confirm that they think AI might soon kill everyone.
AI Researchers On AI Risk
I first became interested in AI risk back around 2007. At the time, most people’s response to the topic was “Haha, come back when anyone believes this besides random Internet crackpots.…
Counterarguments to the basic AI x-risk case
Sixteen weaknesses in the classic argument for AI risk.
Reputational Risk Index — The Global Situation Room Inc.
The Reputation Risk Index™ is a quarterly barometer of emerging and evolving reputational threats to companies and organizations. The Index combines data from the Global Situation Room’s team of crisis experts and analysis from more than 150 preeminent public affairs leaders, from former heads of state and ministers to current CEOs and senior executives who serve on the Global Risk Advisory Council™.
The Realization Effect: Risk-Taking after Realized versus Paper Losses
Understanding how prior outcomes affect risk attitudes is critical for the study of choice under uncertainty. A large literature documents the significant influence of prior losses on risk attitudes. The findings appear contradictory: some studies find greater risk-taking after a loss, whereas others show the opposite—that people take on less risk. I reconcile these seemingly inconsistent findings by distinguishing between realized versus paper losses. Using new and existing data, I replicate prior findings and demonstrate that following a realized loss, individuals avoid risk; if the same loss is not realized, a paper loss, individuals take on greater risk.
Opinion | When It Comes to Covid-19, Most of Us Have Risk Exactly Backward (Published 2020)
We aren’t very good at discussing trade-offs, but we need to make some during this pandemic.
A world in turmoil: governing risk, establishing order in humanitarian crises
This special issue of Disasters on humanitarian governance focuses on risk and order. Its contributions show the tensions between humanitarian normative ideals and practical consequences, as many of ...
On the edge: the art of risking everything
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk-and the players raising the stakes In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape-and dominate-so much of modern life. These professional risk takers-poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors-can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset-including the flaws in their thinking-is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers"--
Beyond Income: Dynamic Consumer Financial Vulnerability
This research challenges the entrenched belief that financial vulnerability affects only low-income consumers. Instead, most consumers across the socioeconomic spectrum experience varying degrees of financial vulnerability at different points during their lives, whether sporadically or chronically; vulnerability is dynamic and heterogeneous. The authors propose a novel, theory-driven definition of consumer financial vulnerability (CFV) as the risk of incurring future harm, given the consumer's current access to various financial resources. A new conceptual framework decouples “vulnerability” from “harm” to distinguish the state of CFV, its determinants (access to various interdependent financial resources), and the constructs it foreshadows (multiple interconnected forms of realized harm). Five research propositions follow: (1) financial resource volatility plays a vital role in CFV, (2) recovering from harm requires more financial resources than preventing harm, (3) a multiperiod lens is needed to assess CFV accurately, (4) greater financial resource access can increase CFV, and (5) generalized financial literacy is not a panacea for mitigating CFV. The propositions and their implications for marketing strategy, public policy, and consumer well-being offer a rich research agenda. The authors propose a measure of CFV—the probability that financial resources are insufficient to meet or exceed a harm threshold—for future empirical investigations.
“The Problem Factory”- Preemptive risk aversion in infrastructure planning and the role of professional services - Niskanen Center
In a small site of special scientific interest about 20 miles northwest of Oxford, a “shed” is being built.
