Existential risk
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An existential risk or existential threat is a potential development that could drastically (or even totally) reduce the capabilities of humankind.
Should I worry?[править]
According to the Global Challenges Foundation a typical person could be five times more likely to die in a mass extinction event compared to a car crash.[1] The Global Priorities Project later issued a retraction of the statement.[2]
Dystopia and Risk map[править]
Map created by Deku-shrub from the data below.
Key risks and scenarios[править]
The following list of risk encompasses long-term dystopian scenarios in addition to traditionally defined existential risks.
Exotic[править]
- Alien intervention
- Examples: Contact, Independence Day, Knowing[3]
- Causing: Direct destruction of humanity, natural/cosmic disasters or anything a super intelligence can do
- Simulation termination
- Examples: The Matrix
- Causing: Direct destruction of humanity
- Exotic physics
- Examples: Creation of false vacuums
- Causing: Direct destruction, simulation termination or environmental collapse
Conflict[править]
- Nuclear war
- Examples: Anything from a single accidental detonation or rogue state up to collapse of MAD and muti-national warfare
- Causing: Accelerating warfare or environmental collapse
- Biological warfare or another catastrophic natural super virus
- Examples: National state attacks through to a 28 days later style ultra-transmissable and deadly plague
- Causing: destroying humanity, accelerating warfare, natural disasters or environmental collapse
- Cyberwarfare, terrorism, rogue states
Environmental[править]
- Accelerating climate change
- Examples: This happened now :(
- Causing: Further natural disasters, depletion of the world's resources or driving dangerous bio or geo engineering projects
- Errant geo-engineering or GMOs
- Examples: Solar radiation management, carbon dioxide removal projects
- Causing: Depletion of resources, further environmental disasters, nano-pollution or environmental collapse
- Natural disasters or Cosmic disasters
- Examples: Asteroid strike, deadly cosmic radiation, ice shelf collapse, bee extinction, crop plagues, ice age. Could even include the Sun's supernova, proton decay and final heat death of the universe.
- Causing: Resource depletion, social or environmental collapse
- Resource depletion
- Examples: Fossil fuels, clean water, serious air quality impact, rare earths, localised overpopulation
- Causing - Social or environmental collapse
- Nanotechnology
- Examples: Gray goo
- Causes: Destruction of humanity, natural disasters or environmental collapse
Future computing and intelligence[править]
- Errant AI, posthuman take over or computing overcomplexity
- Examples: Unfriendly artificial general intelligence, unfriendly elite transhumans (e.g. Khan from Star Trek)[8] or unstable interconnected computing (e.g the events of Dune: The Butlerian Jihad)[9]
- Causing: Accelerating warfare, societal collapse, totalitarianism
Social[править]
- Mega-autocractic / Neo-fascist or other totalitarian dystopias
- Examples: 1984, Gattaca, Star Trek etc
- Causing: Social and technological stagnation or 21st century soma
- 21st century soma
- Examples: Brave New World, Idiocracy
- Causing: technological stagnation or social collapse
- Social collapse
- Examples: Max Max, 28 Days Later etc
- Causing: Accelerating warfare, cyberwarfare/terrorism, technological stagnation, autocracy
Attitudes[править]
Stances that can be adopted towards existential risks include:
- Inevitabilism - the view that, for example, "the victory of transhumanism is inevitable"
- Precautionary - emphasising the downsides of action in areas of relative ignorance
- Proactionary - emphasising the dangers of inaction in areas of relative ignorance
- Techno-optimism - the view that technological development is likely to find good solutions to all existential risks
- Techno-progressive - the view that existential risks must be actively studied and managedШаблон:Disputed
Things that are not existential risks[править]
- Declining sperm count in men whilst problematic for fertility, will not spell the end of humanity[10]
- Increased sexual liberal attitudes will not lead to a Sodom and Gomorrah[11] scenario
- The coming of a religious apocalypse or end times are unlikely
- Sex robots, no matter what Futurama says[12]
- Overpopulation caused by life extension will not lead to Soylent Green type scenarios, rather potentially cause localised instabilities and resource depletion[13]
See also[править]
- Dystopian transhumanism
- Existential opportunities
- Future of Humanity Institute
- Lifeboat Foundation
- Suffering risk
External links[править]
- Global catastrophic risk on Wikipedia
- Typology of human extinction risks by Alexey Turchin on the Immortality Roadmap
- Nick Bostrom's 2002 existential risk paper
- http://www.existential-risk.org/
- /r/ExistentialRisk on Reddit
References[править]
- ↑ Human Extinction Isn't That Unlikely
- ↑ Errata to Global Catastrophic Risks 2016
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film)
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
- ↑ e.g. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- ↑ e.g. spread of Islamism
- ↑ e.g. Theresa May's mass surveillance programmes
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune:_The_Butlerian_Jihad
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40719743
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah
- ↑ https://theinfosphere.org/Robosexuality
- ↑ Deconstructing overpopulation for life extensionists