The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

> Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say, is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert’s knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

With the discussions of p(doom) in AI development, I wonder if we can learn from, and build upon, what some of the world's leading scientists and intellectuals did during and after the development of the nuclear bomb.

This manifesto led to the development of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which "provided background work to the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), the Biological Weapons Convention (1972), and the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993)," possibly the groundwork to end the Vietnam War, and also the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize along with Joseph Rotblat in 1995 [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugwash_Conferences_on_Science...