https://defensesindepth.bio/ A blog focused on protecting humanity against biological threats and exploring the offense/defense balance of the physical world. en Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:58:34 +0000 https://defensesindepth.bio/post-agi-we-are-all-jobless-aristocrats/ https://defensesindepth.bio/post-agi-we-are-all-jobless-aristocrats/ Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Comparative advantage guarantees that human labor is worth something post-AGI, but not that it is worth more than the worker's leisure. https://defensesindepth.bio/ai-risk-and-the-rational-voter/ https://defensesindepth.bio/ai-risk-and-the-rational-voter/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Voters frequently vote 'irrationally' for rational reasons: a single vote has very little impact on the outcome. For most people, beliefs and actions on AI risk are likewise only weakly correlated with the true risk. https://defensesindepth.bio/persuasion-as-market-making/ https://defensesindepth.bio/persuasion-as-market-making/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Damon Binder Persuasion isn't just convincing someone to do one narrow thing: it's finding actions that are in their interest and also benefit you. AIs could be superhumanly good at that search. 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.