My interests and activities are broad, but all revolve around the theme of making the world (universe(s)?) a better place. I am an interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary) researcher working across a wide range of fields in natural and social science, engineering, philosophy, and policy. My primary focus is global catastrophic risk, meaning risk of events that could destroy global human civilization, such as climate change or nuclear war. I also work in astrobiology, which is the study of life in the universe. My research aims to inform major social decisions through careful attention to their impacts on the world and the universe(s), to fundamental ethics principles, and to the people and institutions involved in the decisions.
I am Co-Founder (with Tony Barrett) and Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. I am also a Research Affiliate and Advisory Board member of the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and an Associate Editor at the journal Science and Engineering Ethics. I live in New York City.
Contact:
Research and professional inquiries: director [at] gcri.org
Media inquiries: press [at] gcri.org
General GCRI inquiries: info [at] gcri.org
Other inquiries: hello [at] sethbaum.com
Other Info: CV * photos * LinkedIn * Google Scholar
Updates:
4 Oct 2025:
I'm launching two YouTube channels: the Seth Baum channel, covering my personal perspectives on global catastrophic risk and related topics, and the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute channel, covering core fundamentals of global catastrophic risk. Three videos are now online: From Here To Forever - Channel Introduction on the Seth Baum channel, and Channel Introduction and Is Climate Change a Global Catastrophic Risk? on the GCRI channel.
Click here for old updates
Some Recent Publications:
* Democratic participation and global catastrophic risk, GCRI Commentary (online)
* Parsing AI risk in early 2025, GCRI Commentary (online)
* Advance world peace to address global catastrophic risk?, GCRI Commentary (online)
* The nuclear war scenarios that lurk ahead in Ukraine, GCRI Commentary (online)
* Climate change, uncertainty, and global catastrophic risk, Futures (academic)
* Assessing the risk of takeover catastrophe from large language models, Risk Analysis (academic)
* On the intrinsic value of diversity, Inquiry (academic)
Upcoming Conferences & Events:
None at this time.
Click here for old events
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Created 15 Jun 2007 * Updated 4 Oct 2025