Concepts of existential catastrophe
Hilary Greaves (University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 8-2023, forthcoming in The Monist
The notion of existential catastrophe is increasingly appealed to in discussion of risk management around emerging technologies, but it is not completely clear what this notion amounts to. Here, I provide an opinionated survey of the space of plausibly useful definitions of existential catastrophe. Inter alia, I discuss: whether to define existential catastrophe in ex post or ex ante terms, whether an ex ante definition should be in terms of loss of expected value or loss of potential, and what kind of probabilities should be involved in any appeal to expected value.
Other working papers
High risk, low reward: A challenge to the astronomical value of existential risk mitigation – David Thorstad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Many philosophers defend two claims: the astronomical value thesis that it is astronomically important to mitigate existential risks to humanity, and existential risk pessimism, the claim that humanity faces high levels of existential risk. It is natural to think that existential risk pessimism supports the astronomical value thesis. In this paper, I argue that precisely the opposite is true. Across a range of assumptions, existential risk pessimism significantly reduces the value of existential risk mitigation…
How important is the end of humanity? Lay people prioritize extinction prevention but not above all other societal issues. – Matthew Coleman (Northeastern University), Lucius Caviola (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford) et al.
Human extinction would mean the deaths of eight billion people and the end of humanity’s achievements, culture, and future potential. On several ethical views, extinction would be a terrible outcome. How do people think about human extinction? And how much do they prioritize preventing extinction over other societal issues? Across six empirical studies (N = 2,541; U.S. and China) we find that people consider extinction prevention a global priority and deserving of greatly increased societal resources. …
Heuristics for clueless agents: how to get away with ignoring what matters most in ordinary decision-making – David Thorstad and Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
Even our most mundane decisions have the potential to significantly impact the long-term future, but we are often clueless about what this impact may be. In this paper, we aim to characterize and solve two problems raised by recent discussions of cluelessness, which we term the Problems of Decision Paralysis and the Problem of Decision-Making Demandingness. After reviewing and rejecting existing solutions to both problems, we argue that the way forward is to be found in the distinction between procedural and substantive rationality…