Description: AI systems are being rapidly deployed across industries to drive economic growth but they remain vulnerable to exploitation by a wide range of malicious actors, including Terrorist and Extremist Entities, Hostile Foreign States, and Organized Crime. While these misuse cases remain a critical challenge for both frontier models and downstream AI applications, machine learning tools can also help us detect and prevent malicious actors from producing high-severity harms at scale.

Climate change and the erosion of democratic norms are two of the most pressing global challenges. This paper establishes a link between individuals’ support for democracy and extreme weather events, such as droughts, in the context of sub-Saharan Africa—a region highly vulnerable to climate change and where democratic norms are fragile. I analyze this relationship using Afrobarometer data on support for democracy from 2002 to 2015, covering 129,002 individuals across 16 countries, combined with granular weather data from 1960 to 2015 at a 27km × 27km grid cell resolution.

Book Launch and Panel Event

To discuss and celebrate the publication of Social Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press) by Alexander Betts, a book launch and panel discussion will take place on 6th March at 4-6pm (BST) in-person at Pembroke College and in hybrid form on Zoom. The event is being organised in collaboration with the Social Sciences Division, the ESRC Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership, and the Oxford SDG Impact Lab.

'The Future of Social Science'

What language do we use to engage with voters of populists?

Find out more and register: https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/research/visiting-parliamentary-fellowship/register-to-attend-5/

This seminar will take place in the Nissan Institute Lecture Theatre at St Antony’s College: 62 Woodstock Rd, Oxford, OX2 6JF

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods institutions: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. To mark the occasion, Lord Malloch Brown has been commissioned to study future reforms of the institutions to keep them relevant and meaningful forces of progress, rolling back the triple challenge of extreme poverty, extreme weather and rising inequality. But how realistic is the mission at a time when more and more politicians are seeking to disengage from multilateral solutions to pursue a ‘nation first’ agenda?

Join us for a screening of the documentary Hostile, followed by a Q&A with the Director, Sonita Gale.

The re-election of President Trump and the rise of populist politicians in Europe creates new challenges for Western security in general and for the task of policing nuclear proliferation in particular. In the UK, the Government is producing a new Strategic Defence Review. Yet across NATO, new thinking must accelerate. But looming above the immediate crisis of Ukraine, tensions around Taiwan and the conflict in the Middle East, is the challenge of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the question of how we advance multilateral disarmament.

The Bonavero Institute and Centre for Socio-Legal Studies are pleased to invite you to a screening of Judges Under Pressure, a powerful documentary about the fight for judicial independence in Poland and a panel discussion on judicial independence in Central Eastern Europe and beyond. The event will take place on Wednesday, 12 February, from 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM at the Bonavero Lecture Theatre, Mansfield College.