Existential Threats and Other Disasters: Novel (Bio)ethical Solutions for Novel Challenges

Image of Middle Garden in Reid Hall in Paris, France

While major advances in science and technology continue to pose traditional ethical challenges, the worsening geopolitical landscape – including the spread of armed conflict and environmental destruction – makes renewed ethical scrutiny more urgent than ever. 

This interdisciplinary event, “Existential Threats and Other Disasters: Novel (Bio)ethical Solutions for Novel Challenges” to be held in Paris on 11 and 12 June 2026, will feature keynote lectures, paper presentations, and panel discussions on existential risks and ethical strategies to mitigate them, as well as on the potential for scientific and technological innovations to contribute to human flourishing.

Columbia University's Master of Bioethics Program is pleased to collaborate with The Center for the Study of Bioethics (CSB), The Hastings Center, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Centre for Bioethics to organize the conference.

This conference will assess critical questions raised in light of the rapid evolution of global crises. It will include novel and diverse perspectives, organizers, and participants, explicitly addressing not only catastrophic risks but also the constructive ethical deployment of emerging technologies.

Key Themes:

  • Artificial intelligence as both a transformative opportunity and potential existential danger
  • Social media as a both polarizing national and global politics, and allowing for education
  • Cognitive and moral bioenhancement for existential risk mitigation and human flourishing
  • Germline genome editing and other genetic interventions as both opportunities and threats
  • Food security, agricultural sustainability, and demographic pressures
  • Climate change and ecological degradation
  • Pandemics and global health
  • Bioterrorism
  • Nuclear threats
  • Armed conflict and war
     

Keynote Speakers:

  • Robert L. Klitzman, The Master of Bioethics Program at Columbia University
  • Vojin Rakić, The Center for the Study of Bioethics
  • Roger Y. Chung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Bioethics
  • Vardit Ravitsky, The Hastings Center for Bioethics
  • Julian Savulescu, National University of Singapore
  • Ingmar Persson, University of Goethenburg
  • Nicholas Agar,  University of Waikato
  • Anders Sandberg, Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute
  • James Hughes, University of Massachusetts
  • Arthur Caplan, New York University's Langone Medical Center (online)
  • Peter Singer (TBC), Princeton University, Emeritus, & Nat. Univ. of Singapore
  • Josephine Johnston (TBC),  University of Otago
     

Additional speakers to be confirmed.