https://defensesindepth.bio/ A blog focused on protecting humanity against biological threats and exploring the offense/defense balance of the physical world. en Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:25:26 +0000 https://defensesindepth.bio/agi-will-set-off-an-industrial-explosion/ https://defensesindepth.bio/agi-will-set-off-an-industrial-explosion/ Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder This is a linkpost for https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/agi-will-set-off-an-industrial-explosion https://defensesindepth.bio/why-biological-weapons-are-scary-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/ https://defensesindepth.bio/why-biological-weapons-are-scary-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/ Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Comparing conventional, chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons on cost per death and mass per death puts biological weapons in a class of their own. https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-5-given-agi-automating-physical-production-is-probably-not-that-hard/ https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-5-given-agi-automating-physical-production-is-probably-not-that-hard/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Once we have the minds, building bodies capable enough to automate physical labor is not that hard. https://defensesindepth.bio/the-easiest-pathway-to-control-is-through-executive-power/ https://defensesindepth.bio/the-easiest-pathway-to-control-is-through-executive-power/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Power is already centralised in the US President and Chinese General Secretary. Whoever seeks control during an AI transition, the easiest route runs through the executive. https://defensesindepth.bio/freeing-thucydides/ https://defensesindepth.bio/freeing-thucydides/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Wars happen because states cannot credibly commit to the agreements they would both prefer. AIs could supply the missing enforcer, ending competition for control of the future. https://defensesindepth.bio/how-fast-is-post-agi-growth/ https://defensesindepth.bio/how-fast-is-post-agi-growth/ Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder This is a linkpost for https://newsletter.forethought.org/p/how-fast-is-post-agi-growth https://defensesindepth.bio/dont-fear-the-strangelet/ https://defensesindepth.bio/dont-fear-the-strangelet/ Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Nuclear physics allowed the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. Does new physics provide even more destructive possibilities? https://defensesindepth.bio/destroying-the-universe-how-hard-can-it-be/ https://defensesindepth.bio/destroying-the-universe-how-hard-can-it-be/ Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder The universe is probably not stable, but intentionally triggering its decay might still be impossible. https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-4-cheap-power/ https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-4-cheap-power/ Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder What's the cheapest energy system we could plausibly build, and could it keep pace with explosive post-AGI growth? https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-3-going-faster/ https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-3-going-faster/ Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder How much faster could an AI-automated economy grow without inventing new technology? Reoptimizing across today's frontier plants and considering historical labor-intensive methods cuts the doubling time roughly in half, to four-to-eight months https://defensesindepth.bio/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-ii/ https://defensesindepth.bio/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-ii/ Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Andrew Snyder-Beattie https://defensesindepth.bio/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-i/ https://defensesindepth.bio/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-i/ Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Andrew Snyder-Beattie This series of posts outlines how I think about the most extreme types of risks. My goal here is to share my worldview in a straightforward and compressed form rather than trying to persuade a skeptical audience, although I do share some of my reasoning. https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-2-transition-dynamics/ https://defensesindepth.bio/the-ai-industrial-explosion-part-2-transition-dynamics/ Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder How fast could an AI-automated economy actually start growing? Today's economy doesn't produce enough of the stuff that makes stuff. Restructuring takes a few years — but then the second doubling comes in half the time, and the economy is many times its current size within a decade. https://defensesindepth.bio/10-big-projects-for-reducing-bio-x-risk/ https://defensesindepth.bio/10-big-projects-for-reducing-bio-x-risk/ Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Chris Bakerlee The field of people working on reducing bio x-risk is distressingly small. I sketch out 10 big, urgent projects I'd be excited for new people to come work on and own. https://defensesindepth.bio/prioritizing-environment-to-human-biological-threats/ https://defensesindepth.bio/prioritizing-environment-to-human-biological-threats/ Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Adin Richards Pathogens that replicate in the environment and transmit to humans pose a uniquely direct existential risk, far more so than those that spread person-to-person or can't grow outside a host. Of the possible exposure routes, airborne transmission is by far the hardest to defend against.