Ott, I., Soretz, S.

New technologies such as artificial intelligence and AI-driven synthetic biology open up great opportunities, but they also entail new risks that can be exacerbated by international competition. Our new research paper examines what happens when technological development and the emergence of risks proceed faster than the development of institutional capacities for risk mitigation.

A key finding is the “viability frontier”: this refers to the critical threshold beyond which a stable equilibrium with low risks is lost. The distance to this threshold illustrates how much safety margin still exists—and why forward-looking risk analysis and early policy action are crucial.