Abstract
I give a case that, as a public good, societies and their governments should support and invest in scientific research on crucial phenomena, empirical features of the world that figure strongly in how humanity's choices influence the size of its future. In particular, I give reasons for thinking that (1) humanity's vulnerability or robustness to accidents arising from biological engineering, and (2) the future rates of improvement of artificial intelligence and its susceptibility to misuse, are phenomena that call strongly for our systematic attention.
Daniel Dewey