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
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. …
Is Existential Risk Mitigation Uniquely Cost-Effective? Not in Standard Population Models – Gustav Alexandrie (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford) and Maya Eden (Brandeis University)
What socially beneficial causes should philanthropists prioritize if they give equal ethical weight to the welfare of current and future generations? Many have argued that, because human extinction would result in a permanent loss of all future generations, extinction risk mitigation should be the top priority given this impartial stance. Using standard models of population dynamics, we challenge this conclusion. We first introduce a theoretical framework for quantifying undiscounted cost-effectiveness over…
Longtermism, aggregation, and catastrophic risk – Emma J. Curran (University of Cambridge)
Advocates of longtermism point out that interventions which focus on improving the prospects of people in the very far future will, in expectation, bring about a significant amount of good. Indeed, in expectation, such long-term interventions bring about far more good than their short-term counterparts. As such, longtermists claim we have compelling moral reason to prefer long-term interventions. …