{"id":77593,"date":"2022-09-23T08:10:41","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T08:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=problem_profile&#038;p=77593"},"modified":"2024-08-02T02:06:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T02:06:00","slug":"risks-from-malevolent-actors","status":"publish","type":"problem_profile","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/problem-profiles\/risks-from-malevolent-actors\/","title":{"rendered":"Risks from malevolent&nbsp;actors"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"toc_container\" class=\"toc_white no_bullets\"><p class=\"toc_title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"toc_list\"><li><a href=\"#why-might-risks-from-malevolent-actors-be-an-especially-pressing-problem\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">1<\/span> Why might risks from malevolent actors be an especially pressing problem?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#learn-more\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">2<\/span> Learn more<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<h2><span id=\"why-might-risks-from-malevolent-actors-be-an-especially-pressing-problem\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Why might risks from malevolent actors be an especially pressing problem?<\/h2>\n<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/forum.effectivealtruism.org\/posts\/LpkXtFXdsRd4rG8Kb\/reducing-long-term-risks-from-malevolent-actors\">essay by David Althaus and Tobias Baumann<\/a> argues that when people with some or all of the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dark_triad\">&#8216;dark tetrad&#8217;<\/a> traits &#8212; narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism &#8212; are in positions of power or influence, this plausibly increases the risk of catastrophes that could harm many people alive today or even influence the long-term future.<\/p>\n<p>Developing better measures of these traits, they suggest &#8212; as well as good tests of these measures &#8212; could help us make our institutions less liable to be influenced by such actors. We could, for instance, make &#8216;non-malevolence&#8217; a condition of holding political office or having sway over powerful new technologies.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s not clear how large of a problem malevolent individuals in society are compared to other issues, there is historical precedent for malevolent actors coming to power &#8212; for example, Hitler and Stalin plausibly had strong dark tetrad traits &#8212; and perhaps this wouldn&#8217;t have happened if there had been better precautions in place. If so, this suggests that careful measures could prevent future bad events of a similar scale (or worse) from taking place.<\/p>\n<p>There has been very little work on this topic that we know of.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"learn-more\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Learn more<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/forum.effectivealtruism.org\/posts\/LpkXtFXdsRd4rG8Kb\/reducing-long-term-risks-from-malevolent-actors\">David Althaus and Tobias Baumann&#8217;s essay<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/forum.effectivealtruism.org\/topics\/risks-from-malevolent-actors\">Topic hub for risks from malevolent actors on the Effective Altruism Forum<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/podcast\/episodes\/kevin-esvelt-stealth-wildfire-pandemics\/\">Kevin Esvelt on cults that want to kill everyone, stealth vs wildfire pandemics, and how he felt inventing gene drives<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/podcast\/episodes\/sella-nevo-securing-ai-model-weights\/\">Sella Nevo on who&#8217;s trying to steal frontier AI models, and what could they do with them<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/podcast\/episodes\/jaime-yassif-safeguarding-bioscience\/\">Jaime Yassif on safeguarding bioscience to prevent catastrophic lab accidents and bioweapons development<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"tw--mt-6 tw--p-3 tw--pt-2 tw--bg-gray-lighter tw--rounded-md \">\n<h3 class=\"no-toc\">\t\t<a class=\"no-visited-styling tw--text-off-black hover:tw--text-off-black hover:tw--no-underline focus:tw--text-off-black\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/problem-profiles\/\">\t\t\t<small>Read next:&nbsp;<\/small>\t\t\tExplore other pressing world problems\t\t<\/a>\t<\/h3>\n<div class=\"tw--grid xs:tw--grid-flow-col tw--gap-3\">\n<div class=\"xs:tw--order-last tw--pt-1\">\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/problem-profiles\/\">\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/sea-ocean-sky-night-cosmos-view-826635-pxhere.com_-720x448.jpg\" alt=\"Decorative post preview\" width=\"720\" height=\"448\">\t\t\t<\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\n<div class=\"tw--pb-3\">\n<p>Want to learn more about global issues we think are especially pressing? See our list of issues that are large in scale, solvable, and neglected, according to our research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/problem-profiles\/\" class=\"btn btn-primary\">Continue &rarr;<\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"well visible-if-not-newsletter-subscriber margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<h3 class=\"no-toc\">Plus, join our newsletter and we&#8217;ll mail you a free book<\/h3>\n<p>Join our newsletter and we&#8217;ll send you a free copy of <em>The Precipice<\/em> \u2014 a book by philosopher Toby Ord about how to tackle the greatest threats facing humanity. <a href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/free-book\/#giveaway-terms\">T&#038;Cs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<form data-80k-object-id=\"\" data-80k-form-action=\"newsletter__subscribe\" action=\"\/\" method=\"post\" class=\"form-newsletter-signup form-newsletter-signup-step-1 margin-bottom-smaller\">\n<div class=\"mc-field-group input-group compact-input-group \"> <input type=\"email\" value=\"\" name=\"email\" required class=\"form-control email\" placeholder=\"Email address\" id=\"input_email\"> <span class=\"submit input-group-btn input-group-btn-right\"> <input type=\"submit\" id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" value=\"GET THE BOOK\" class=\"btn btn-primary \" \/> <\/span> <\/div>\n<div> <input name=\"_eightyk_action\" value=\"mailchimp_add_subscriber\" type=\"hidden\"> <input name=\"redirect_path_after_step_2\" value=\"\/newsletter\/welcome\/\" type=\"hidden\"> <\/div>\n<div style=\"position: absolute; left: -5000px;\"> <input type=\"text\" name=\"b_abc12f58bbe8075560abdc5b7_43bc1ae55c\" tabindex=\"-1\" value=\"\"> <\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":408,"featured_media":80213,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1231,291],"class_list":["post-77593","problem_profile","type-problem_profile","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-risks-from-malevolent-actors","category-world-problems"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - 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