Beliefs about the end of humanity: How bad, likely, and important is human extinction?
Matthew Coleman (Northeastern University), Lucius Caviola (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford), Joshua Lewis (New York University) and Geoffrey Goodwin (University of Pennsylvania)
GPI Working Paper No. 1-2024
Human extinction would mean the end of humanity’s achievements, culture, and future potential. According to some ethical views, this would be a terrible outcome. But how do people think about human extinction? And how much do they prioritize preventing extinction over other societal issues? Across five empirical studies (N = 2,147; U.S. and China) we find that people consider extinction prevention a societal priority and deserving of greatly increased societal resources. However, despite estimating the likelihood of human extinction to be 5% this century (U.S. median), people believe that the chances would need to be around 30% for it to be the very highest priority. In line with this, people consider extinction prevention to be only one among several important societal issues. People’s judgments about the relative importance of extinction prevention appear relatively fixed and hard to change by reason-based interventions.
Other working papers
Doomsday rings twice – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
This paper considers the argument according to which, because we should regard it as a priori very unlikely that we are among the most important people who will ever exist, we should increase our confidence that the human species will not persist beyond the current historical era, which seems to represent…
Three mistakes in the moral mathematics of existential risk – David Thorstad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Longtermists have recently argued that it is overwhelmingly important to do what we can to mitigate existential risks to humanity. I consider three mistakes that are often made in calculating the value of existential risk mitigation: focusing on cumulative risk rather than period risk; ignoring background risk; and neglecting population dynamics. I show how correcting these mistakes pushes the value of existential risk mitigation substantially below leading estimates, potentially low enough to…
On two arguments for Fanaticism – Jeffrey Sanford Russell (University of Southern California)
Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? Fanaticism says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better.