a real downer of a conference

The world's experts are meeting at Oxford University on Thursday to attend the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference. A few of the happy subjects being covered: "What to do if a large asteroid were to be on a collision course with our planet", "The unintended consequences of new technologies, such as superintelligent machines that, if ill-conceived, might cause the demise of Homo sapiens" and the "Movement towards the merger of man and machine". Oh to be a fly on the wall at their after-conference social mixers.