1. Does the paper address relevant scientific questions within the scope of ESD?

• Absolutely, establishing and documenting the burgeoning meta-field of GCR research
• Does the paper present novel concepts, ideas, tools, or data?
• Yes, insofar as it is a novel diagnosis of a new field, though in substance it deals only with material published elsewhere
• Are substantial conclusions reached?
• Yes, mainly in concluding that GCR can indeed be considered a subfield and in documenting it’s different aspects and inter-connections. However, I do think more could be said about ways to improve the output, balance (in gender, regional origin of authors as well as topic spread), and take-up of GCR ideas. Namely, expanding section 7 with more detail about what is currently being lost or not taken full advantage of due to the limitations of the field described. Perhaps also adding some discussion of other sub-fields that were able to grow and become established disciplines would be valuable
• Are the scientific methods and assumptions valid and clearly outlined?
• yes
• Are the results sufficient to support the interpretations and conclusions?
• absolutely
• Is the description of experiments and calculations sufficiently complete and precise to allow their reproduction by fellow scientists (traceability of results)?
• Yes, though the bibliometric analysis relies on much ‘subjective’ evaluation by researchers in tagging / interpreting articles and developing clusters, so reproductions are unlikely to produce the exact same results. Nevertheless, I find the methods solid and as explicit as they can be to allow for a full diagnosis and evaluation of the approach taken here, which is all one could really ask of such a study
• Do the authors give proper credit to related work and clearly indicate their own new/original contribution?
• Yes, this is very much the heart of the study
• Does the title clearly reflect the contents of the paper?
• Yes
• Does the abstract provide a concise and complete summary?
• Yes        
• Is the overall presentation well structured and clear?
• Yes, I found it very well structured and easy to follow
• Is the language fluent and precise?
• Yes
• Are mathematical formulae, symbols, abbreviations, and units correctly defined and used?
• Yes
• Should any parts of the paper (text, formulae, figures, tables) be clarified, reduced, combined, or eliminated?
• No
• Are the number and quality of references appropriate?
• Yes – appropriate and admirably comprehensive!
• Is the amount and quality of supplementary material appropriate?
• Yes, though I think a bit more text to provide context for each of the figures presented in the SM could be helpful for readers

In terms of novelty, this is the first attempt ever at an academic review of the field of GCR and ER, as far as I know. I remember thinking about doing this a couple of years ago and I’m glad someone did it. The conclusions are overall not groundbreaking, but are adequate. It was interesting to see the different relative size of the literature clusters and the implications of it. Other than a few minor comments, I think the paper clearly warrants publication.

Section 7.2 makes an interesting, potentially misleading claim that the current focus on AI is due to the origin of the field. While it is true that the modern ER field as conceptualized by Bostrom did arise in part from AI risk concerns, its history comes from further back, and is more related to nuclear risk. Even in the original “Global Catastrophic Risks” book there was only one chapter focused on AI risk, while there was much more material on natural risks and nuclear risk, and the 2002 paper that coined the term existential risk only has one paragraph on AI risk. I think the focus on AI came later, after studying the topic more, and is very unlikely to change, particularly now in the light of recent developments in the field of AI.

I think the paper would benefit from providing a more comprehensive history of GCR and ER, which could mention post-World War II movements that catalyzed such concerns: the Atomic Scientists’ seminal warnings, Bertrand Russel and the related widespread anti-nuclear demonstrations spearheaded by organizations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100; as well as Isaac Asimov’s “a choice of catastrophes” which was the first nonfiction work in the topic—even if these people were not using the terms GCR/ER because they hadn’t been invented yet. I recommend adding a few sentences or a paragraph on this. As a reference for this they can use this book chapter they already cite: Beard, S. J., & Bronson, R. (2023). 1. A Brief History of Existential Risk and the People Who Worked to Mitigate It. SJ Beard et al, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0336.01

I would also have liked to see some indication of what the most influential papers or books in the field are. Would it be Bostrom and Cirkovic’s seminal “Global Catastrophic Risks” book? Maybe a popular book like Toby Ord’s “The Precipice” or bostrom’s “Superintelligence”? Carl Sagan’s warnings about nuclear winter that reached the media significantly and could be said to still echo to this day? Or something else?. I find the question of how influential the writings are to be more relevant than who is most prolific, which was studied in the analysis (Fig. 4).

I would have been interested to see a broader treatment of the policy recommendations the field has generated and its limited policy update, beyond the brief discussion of section 7.5. I think doing an analysis of how much GCR documents have been cited in policy would be too much and reach beyond the scope, but it could benefit from citing some relevant examples such as: the “Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act” law of the United States, the UN discussions around existential risk in “Our Common Agenda” and “What kind of institution is needed for existential security”.

The following reference has more discussion on the potential reasons why the policy uptake of GCR policy has been low, and proposes an intervention to address this: Boyd, M., & Wilson, N. (2023). Assumptions, uncertainty, and catastrophic/existential risk: National risk assessments need improved methods and stakeholder engagement. Risk analysis, 43(12), 2486-2502. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.14123

You can find many examples of policy proposals to address GCR and their academic sources here: https://airtable.com/appik0mTEiTNi2SgE/shr8XPqTaoiyAfEcL/tblqS8BUzkkpK5Err

This review paper has some discussion on efforts to implement GCR resilience work into policy, particularly against nuclear war: García Martínez, J. B., Behr, J., Pearce, J., & Denkenberger, D. (2024). Resilient foods for preventing global famine: a review of food supply interventions for global catastrophic food shocks including nuclear winter and infrastructure collapse. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2024.2431207

Other than that, I think the scientific methods and assumptions valid and clearly outlined, the results are sufficient to support the interpretations and conclusions, the authors give proper credit to related work and clearly indicate their own contribution, the title clearly reflects the contents of the paper, the abstract provides a concise and complete summary, the overall presentation well-structured and clear, and the number and quality of references are appropriate.