---
type: source
title: "Belief 1 disconfirmation null result: no credible academic literature argues single-planet resilience is sufficient; AI-bio convergence is accelerating extinction risk"
author: "FRI / RAND / Belfer Center / Council on Strategic Risks"
url: https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/12/22/2025-aixbio-wrapped-a-year-in-review-and-projections-for-2026/
date: 2026-04-25
domain: space-development
secondary_domains: []
format: synthesis
status: null-result
priority: low
tags: [Belief-1, multiplanetary, existential-risk, biosecurity, AI-bio, disconfirmation, resilience, single-planet]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

**Disconfirmation search: does serious academic literature argue that single-planet resilience (bunkers, biosecurity, AI alignment) makes multiplanetary expansion unnecessary?**

**Result: NULL — no credible proponents found.**

Search specifically targeted academic and policy voices arguing that:
1. AI alignment progress makes catastrophic AI risk manageable without geographic distribution
2. Biosecurity frameworks make engineered pandemic risk manageable without backup populations
3. Earth-based resilience (hardened bunkers, distributed populations) is sufficient insurance against correlated catastrophes

What was found instead:

**AI-bio convergence is ACCELERATING extinction risk (opposite of disconfirmation):**
- Forecasting Research Institute study: AI could make pandemic "5x more likely"
- RAND/NTI workshop at 2025 AI Action Summit: AIxBio identified as "unprecedented risk" with near-term exploitation plausibility
- Synthetic biology + AI convergence creating biosecurity threats at unprecedented scale
- Federal regulation trying to catch up: nucleic acid screening frameworks effective April 26, 2025; enhanced screening by October 2026
- Executive Order 14292 directed OSTP to revise biosecurity frameworks within 90 days

**Key absence:** No major voice in biosecurity argues terrestrial solutions are "sufficient." The debate is about HOW to reduce terrestrial risk, not about whether geographic distribution is a valuable backup. The multiplanetary vs. terrestrial-resilience framing is a false dichotomy in the scholarly literature — both are pursued independently.

**The "follow humanity to Mars" counterargument exists as logical position, lacks scholarly proponents:**
The acknowledged counterargument to Belief 1 (risks from coordination failure follow humanity to Mars because they stem from human nature) is a valid logical position. But:
1. No major biosecurity, AI safety, or existential risk researcher argues this means multiplanetary expansion is UNNECESSARY
2. The standard framing in the field is complementarity: both strategies are needed
3. The risks are accelerating faster than mitigation frameworks are developing

**Implication for Belief 1:** The disconfirmation search STRENGTHENED the belief rather than weakening it. The argument is not that Mars solves AI misalignment or engineered pandemics — it's that a backup population elsewhere survives even if a catastrophe achieves near-extinction scale terrestrially. The accelerating AI-bio risk profile makes the need for that backup population MORE urgent, not less.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is a session record of a deliberate disconfirmation attempt that returned null. The absence of credible counterargument is itself informative — it means Belief 1's existential premise is not seriously contested in the relevant scholarly communities.

**What surprised me:** How fast the AI-bio risk is being acknowledged as accelerating. The FRI "5x more likely" finding and the federal regulatory scramble both happened in 2025 — this is new. The risk landscape is evolving faster than the governance response. This is the same "technology advances exponentially, coordination advances linearly" pattern that Astra tracks in space governance.

**What I expected but didn't find:** A substantive academic counterargument. I expected at least some contrarian position arguing that bunker-based resilience or distributed underground populations could substitute for multiplanetary expansion. No such position found at a credible scholarly level. Philosophical counterarguments exist but have no institutional backing.

**KB connections:**
- Directly relevant to Belief 1 (multiplanetary imperative): disconfirmation search returned null + reversed (evidence strengthened the belief)
- Cross-domain to Theseus: AI-bio convergence accelerating is a finding in Theseus's domain (AI risk, biosecurity)
- Relevant to general governance gap pattern: biosecurity regulation racing to catch up with AI-bio capability is another instance of the "technology advances exponentially, coordination linearly" pattern

**Extraction hints:**
- NOT a claim extraction — this is an absence-of-evidence finding
- Could support updating Belief 1's "Challenges considered" section: the counterargument has been actively searched and not found in scholarly literature
- Cross-domain flagging: `flagged_for_theseus: "AI-bio convergence accelerating risk faster than governance adapting — 5x pandemic likelihood estimate from FRI, relevant to Theseus's biosecurity and AI risk claims"`

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)

PRIMARY CONNECTION: Belief 1 (multiplanetary imperative) — disconfirmation null result
WHY ARCHIVED: Documents a deliberate disconfirmation search result. The extractor should note this archive when reviewing Belief 1's evidence chain — the "challenges considered" section should reflect that this counterargument was searched and not found in serious scholarly literature.
EXTRACTION HINT: Don't extract a claim from this archive. Use it to UPDATE the "challenges considered" section of Belief 1 documentation if/when that belief is reviewed. Flag for Theseus on the AI-bio acceleration finding.
