Letter from the Executive Director
In 2025, GCRI wrapped up some organizational redevelopment that had begun in previous years. This includes the launch of the new gcri.org website, the GCRI Commentary publication series, and GCRI videos. It took a lot of work on a shoestring budget, but we now have a solid foundation to build a more robust organization to better advance our mission of addressing global catastrophic risk.
I am especially proud of the gcri.org website. At a time when so much of the internet is overrun with clickbait, ads, and AI slop seeking to extract value from people, the GCRI website stands out as something designed and built carefully to provide benefit to people. The design seeks to balance images and text within a visual hierarchy and information architecture fit for people with a strong intellectual curiosity and motivation to learn more about GCRI and global catastrophic risk. We took design cues from many think tanks (e.g., Brookings, CFR, CSIS, RAND) and news media outlets (e.g., NY Times, Scientific American, Vox, and especially the London Review of Books). I would put the design of gcri.org up against any of those websites.
The GCRI Commentary publication series is shaping up to become a significant forum for discussion of issues in global catastrophic risk. GCRI Commentary articles have the same intellectual rigor as our research publications, but they are written to be accessible to a general, non-expert audience. Previously, GCRI had published commentary articles almost exclusively for other media outlets. We did this in part to reach an expanded audience, but also in part because our old website just wasn’t an attractive place to publish. We will continue to publish in other outlets where opportunities arise, but by self-publishing our own commentary articles on the gcri.org website, we can publish more of them and on the topics and timing of our choosing. We can also serve as the publisher of commentaries written by our very talented external colleagues, which we are starting to do in 2026.
The GCRI video series is off to a slower start. The video format has a lot of potential, especially long-form video on the YouTube platform. It can reach very large audiences and engage them with detailed, nuanced, and visually rich discussions of complex topics like global catastrophic risk. Videos on global catastrophic risk and related topics sometimes reach millions or even tens of millions of people (e.g., this, this, and this). However, I am learning the hard way that producing high-quality video that can reach that kind of audience is quite difficult: GCRI’s initial videos have reached about 100 people each, which for YouTube is approximately zero. And so, I have paused the production of new GCRI videos. I don’t want to waste GCRI’s limited resources making bad videos that nobody watches. Instead, I’m focused on my own personal YouTube channel, which I run in my spare time separately from GCRI. I’m using my personal channel to become a better video creator. Hopefully, I will develop video production capabilities that I can then bring back to GCRI.
The new website, the commentary articles, and the videos all position GCRI to engage wider audiences. Previously, GCRI was focused mainly on technical research and community building for a relatively narrow community of experts. This is important work, and we will continue to do it, but it has significant limitations. Engagement with wider audiences can help to advance larger policy changes and it supports a more inclusive and democratic field of global catastrophic risk, as discussed in the GCRI Commentary article Democratic participation and global catastrophic risk. I am increasingly of the view that there should be more public participation in democracy in general, and that this should connect with technical policy analysis of the sort done by GCRI. Global catastrophic risk stands out as a topic with broad appeal: almost everyone agrees a global catastrophe would be very bad and it should be avoided.
GCRI has five new publications to report, all published in our new GCRI Commentary format:
The nuclear war scenarios that lurk ahead in Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is currently stuck in a relatively stable war of attrition, but the risk of nuclear war remains. This GCRI commentary describes two nuclear war scenarios: one involving Russian hostilities with NATO and one involving Russian battlefield defeat in Ukraine. Both scenarios should be accounted for in NATO policy.
Advance world peace to address global catastrophic risk? World peace has long been an elusive goal, and the world today is certainly not at peace. This GCRI commentary argues that, nonetheless, world peace may be a worthy element of a broader agenda to address global catastrophic risk. This is due to the many aspects of global catastrophic risk that would be easier to address if the world was at peace.
Parsing AI risk in early 2025. In early 2025, depending on who one asks, the AI industry is either on track to render humans obsolete within the next few years or about to go bust, or maybe somewhere in between. This GCRI commentary argues that extreme short-term AI scenarios are unlikely, but they nonetheless should be accounted for given the high stakes.
Democratic participation and global catastrophic risk. US policy advocacy today mostly consists of insider engagement with government officials, in contrast with the public mobilization of earlier eras. This GCRI commentary argues that public mobilization, though difficult, would be more democratic and enable larger policy wins. It proposes a policy agenda designed for broad public appeal.
Government procedure and global catastrophic risk. Global catastrophic risk is heavily affected by the procedures governments use to make decisions. This GCRI commentary calls for a nuanced understanding instead of one-size-fits all procedures. It discusses procedure changes across US history from the New Deal through the anti-establishment backlash to contemporary debates about abundance.
Videos
In 2025, GCRI launched a new YouTube channel and released two videos:
GCRI YouTube Channel Introduction. GCRI is launching a new series of videos to present core fundamentals of global catastrophic risk to wider audiences. This video serves to introduce our new channel. The video explains that while there is no guarantee that global catastrophe will be avoided in the future, with enough targeted effort, it may be possible to avoid it.
Is Climate Change a Global Catastrophic Risk? We know that climate change is a major threat to the world, but is it a global catastrophic risk? This GCRI video addresses the question by studying three extreme climate change scenarios and comparing them to the definition of global catastrophic risk. It covers extreme warming, geoengineering failure, and pandemics induced by climate change.
As senior members of a growing field, GCRI is active in supporting the broader community of people and organizations working on global catastrophic risk.
We held the seventh year of our annual Advising and Collaboration Program. We spoke with 20 people from around the world, providing them with feedback and guidance on how they can get more involved in global catastrophic risk. We also made 13 introductions between program participants and people in our wider professional networks, providing them with further leads for getting more involved.
We held the fifth year of our annual Fellowship Program. This year we have three Fellows. One of them is collaborating with GCRI on projects focused on international security and China-West relations. Two are collaborating on the social science of public views on global catastrophic risk.