That’s tragic for those who perish and for those who would never get to experience life at all. Like a person who crosses the road without checking for traffic, the odds are that you’ll eventually get hit. If we keep it up for another millennium, there’s a five in six chance that humans never make it to the year 3000. That basically means that humanity is playing Russian roulette once a century. In my new book What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics (MIT Press), I quote the estimate of Oxford philosopher Toby Ord that the chance of a species-ending event in the next century is one in six. I’ve come to believe that catastrophic risk is a vital issue. My priority was people’s quality of life, not the end of life itself. But when I entered parliament in 2010, the issue of existential risk didn’t loom large on my radar. As an adult, I’ve been a strong advocate of climate change action. And all the while climate change could lead to unstoppable feedback loops.Īs a teenager, I joined Palm Sunday anti-nuclear rallies. Computer technology that could create a machine that is smarter than us and doesn’t share our goals. Biotechnology that could allow the creation of deadly pathogens. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at major cities. But do it enough times and you’re likely to come a cropper.Īs a species, humanity is now playing with technological innovations that pose a small but real risk of ending our existence. What would happen if you decided to cross the road without checking the traffic? Odds are that you’d survive unscathed.
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