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science and ethics of human extinction in it leslie considered a range of threats to humanity and what they have in common in 2003 british astronomer royal sir martin rees published our final hour in which he argues that advances in certain technologies create new threats to the survival of humankind and that the 21st century may be a critical moment in history when humanity s fate is decided 13 edited by nick bostrom and milan m ćirković global catastrophic risks published in 2008 is a collection of essays from 26 academics on various global catastrophic and existential risks 14 nicholas p money s 2019 book the selfish ape delves into the environmental consequences of overexploitation 15 toby ord s 2020 book the precipice argues that preventing existential risks is one of the most important moral issues of our time the book discusses quantifies and compares different existential risks concluding that the greatest risks are presented by unaligned artificial intelligence and biotechnology 16 lyle lewis 2024 book racing to extinction explores the roots of human extinction from an evolutionary biology perspective lewis argues that humanity treats unused natural resources as waste and is driving ecological destruction through overexploitation habitat loss and denial of environmental limits he uses vivid examples like the extinction of the passenger pigeon and the environmental cost of rice production to show how interconnected and fragile ecosystems are 17 henry gee s book the rise and fall of the human empire 2025 argues that humanity is on the brink of extinction due to environmental degradation and diminishing resources 18 in 2022 a study led by a group of scientists asked for a new research agenda to figure out the possible catastrophic effects of climate change such as situations that could kill off 10 of the world s population or even all of humanity they say that the ipcc should write a report on catastrophic climate change because the effects of extreme warming like famine severe weather war and disease outbreaks have not been studied enough the researchers stress the importance of comprehending potential tipping points and interacting threats to enhance preparedness for worst case scenarios 19 probability natural vs anthropogenic experts generally agree that anthropogenic existential risks are much more likely than natural risks 20 13 21 2 22 a key difference between these risk types is that empirical evidence can place an upper bound on the level of natural risk 2 humanity has existed for at least 200 000 years over which it has been subject to a roughly constant level of natural risk if the natural risk were high enough humanity would not have survived this long based on a formalization of this argument researchers have concluded that we can be confident that natural risk is lower than 1 in 14 000 per year equivalent to 1 in 140 per century on average 2 another empirical method to study the likelihood of certain natural risks is to investigate the geological record 20 for example a comet or asteroid impact event sufficient in scale to cause an impact winter that would cause human extinction before the year 2100 has been estimated at one in a million 23 24 moreover large supervolcano eruptions may cause a volcanic winter that could endanger the survival of humanity 25 the geological record suggests that supervolcanic eruptions are estimated to occur on average about once every 50 000 years though most such eruptions would not reach the scale required to cause human extinction 25 famously the supervolcano mt toba may have almost wiped out humanity at the time of its last eruption though this is contentious 25 26 since anthropogenic risk is a relatively recent phenomenon humanity s track record of survival cannot provide similar assurances 2 humanity has only existed for 80 years since the creation of nuclear weapons and there is no historical track record for future technologies this has led thinkers like carl sagan to conclude that humanity is currently in a time of perils 27 a uniquely dangerous period in human history where it is subject to unprecedented levels of risk beginning from when humans first started posing risk to themselves through their actions 20 28 paleobiologist olev vinn has suggested that humans presumably have a number of inherited behavior patterns ibps that are not fine tuned for conditions prevailing in technological civilization some ibps may be highly incompatible with such conditions and have a high potential to induce self destruction these patterns may include responses of individuals seeking power over conspecifics in relation to harvesting and consuming energy 29 nonetheless there are ways to address the issue of inherited behavior patterns 30 risk estimates given the limitations of ordinary observation and modeling expert elicitation is frequently used instead to obtain probability estimates 31 humanity has a 95 probability of being extinct in 8 000 000 years according to j richard gott s formulation of the controversial doomsday argument which argues that we have probably already lived through half the duration of human history 32 in 1996 john a leslie estimated a 30 risk over the next five centuries equivalent to around 6 per century on average 33 the global challenges foundation s 2016 annual report estimates an annual probability of human extinction of at least 0 05 per year equivalent to 5 per century on average 34 as of august 29 2026 metaculus users estimate a 2 probability of human extinction by 2100 35 a 2020 study published in scientific reports warns that if deforestation and resource consumption continue at current rates these factors could lead to a catastrophic collapse in human population and possibly an irreversible collapse of our civilization in the next 20 to 40 years according to the most optimistic scenario provided by the study the chances that human civilization survives are smaller than 10 to avoid this collapse the study says humanity should pass from a civilization dominated by the economy to a cultural society that privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest 36 37 nick bostrom a philosopher at the university of oxford known for his work on existential risk argues that it would be misguided 38 to assume that the probability of near term extinction is less than 25 and that it will be a tall order for the human race to get our precautions sufficiently right the first time given that an existential risk provides no opportunity to learn from failure 3 23 philosopher john a leslie assigns a 70 chance of humanity surviving the next five centuries based partly on the controversial philosophical doomsday argument that he champions leslie s argument is somewhat frequentist based on the observation that human extinction has never been observed but requires subjective anthropic arguments 39 leslie also discusses the anthropic survivorship bias which he calls an observational selection effect and states that the a priori certainty of observing an undisastrous past could make it difficult to argue that we must be safe because nothing terrible has yet occurred he quotes holger bech nielsen s formulation we do not even know if there should exist some extremely dangerous decay of say the proton which caused the eradication of the earth because if it happens we would no longer be there to observe it and if it does not happen there is nothing to observe 40 jean marc salotti calculated the probability of human extinction caused by a giant asteroid impact 41 if no planets are colonized it will be 0 03 to 0 3 for the next billion years according to that study the most frightening object is a giant long period comet with a warning time of only a few years and therefore no time for any intervention in space or settlement on the moon or mars the probability of a giant comet impact in the next hundred years is 2 2 10 12 41 as the united nations office for disaster risk reduction estimated in 2023 there is a 2 to 14 chance of an extinction level event by 2100 42 bill gates told the wall street journal on january 27 2025 that he believes there is a 10 15 chance of a natural pandemic hitting in the next four years but he estimated that there was also a 65 97 5 chance of a natural pandemic hitting in the next 26 years 43 on march 19 2025 henry gee said that humanity will be extinct in the next 10 000 years to avoid it happening he wanted all humanity to establish space colonies in the next 200 300 years 44 on september 11 2025 warp news estimated a 20 chance of global catastrophe and a 6 chance of human extinction by 2100 they also estimated a 100 chance of global catastrophe and a 30 chance of human extinction by 2500 45 from nuclear weapons main article nuclear holocaust likelihood of complete human extinction on november 13 2024 the american enterprise institute estimated a probability of nuclear war during the 21st century between 0 and 80 46 a 2023 article of the economist estimated an 8 chance of nuclear war causing global catastrophe and a 0 5625 chance of nuclear war causing human extinction 47 from supervolcanic eruption on november 13 2024 the american enterprise institute estimated an annual probability of supervolcanic eruption around 0 0067 0 67 per century on average 46 from artificial intelligence main article existential risk from artificial intelligence a 2008 survey by the future of humanity institute estimated a 5 probability of extinction by superintelligence by 2100 21 a 2016 survey of ai experts found a median estimate of 5 that human level ai would cause an outcome that was extremely bad e g human extinction 48 in 2019 the risk was lowered to 2 but in 2022 it was increased back to 5 in 2023 the risk doubled to 10 in 2024 the risk increased to 15 49 in 2020 toby ord estimates existential risk in the next century at 1 in 6 in his book the precipice 20 50 he also estimated a 1 in 10 risk of extinction by unaligned ai within the next century according to a july 10 2023 article of the economist scientists estimated a 12 chance of ai caused catastrophe and a 3 chance of ai caused extinction by 2100 they also estimated a 100 chance of ai caused catastrophe and a 25 chance of ai caused extinction by 2833 on december 27 2024 geoffrey hinton estimated a 10 20 probability of ai caused extinction in the next 30 years 51 he also estimated a 50 100 probability of ai caused extinction in the next 150 years on august 1 2025 holly elmore estimated a 15 20 probability of an ai caused extinction in the next 1 10 years she also estimated a 75 100 probability of an ai caused extinction in the next 5 50 years 52 on november 10 2025 elon musk estimated the probability of ai driven human extinction at 20 while others including bengio s who colleagues placed the risk anywhere between 10 and 90 in other words elon musk and yoshua bengio s colleagues estimated a 20 50 probability of an ai caused extinction 53 from climate change main article climate change and civilizational collapse placard against omnicide at extinction rebellion 2018 in a 2010 interview with the australian the late australian scientist frank fenner predicted the extinction of the human race within a century primarily as the result of human overpopulation environmental degradation and climate change 54 there are several economists who have discussed the importance of global catastrophic risks for example martin weitzman argues that most of the expected economic damage from climate change may come from the small chance that warming greatly exceeds the mid range expectations resulting in catastrophic damage 55 richard posner has argued that humanity is doing far too little in general about small hard to estimate risks of large scale catastrophes 56 individual vs species risks although existential risks are less manageable by individuals than for example health risks according to ken olum joshua knobe and alexander vilenkin the possibility of human extinction does have practical implications for instance if the universal doomsday argument is accepted it changes the most likely source of disasters and hence the most efficient means of preventing them 57 difficulty some scholars argue that certain scenarios including global thermonuclear war would struggle to eradicate every last settlement on earth physicist willard wells points out that any credible extinction scenario would have to reach into a diverse set of areas including the underground subways of major cities the mountains of tibet the remotest islands of the south pacific and even mcmurdo station in antarctica which has contingency plans and supplies for long isolation 58 in addition elaborate bunkers exist for government leaders to occupy during a nuclear war 23 the existence of nuclear submarines capable of remaining hundreds of meters deep in the ocean for potentially years should also be taken into account any number of events could lead to a massive loss of human life but if the last few see minimum viable population most resilient humans are unlikely to also die off then that particular human extinction scenario may not seem credible 59 ethics value of human life existential risks are risks that threaten the entire future of humanity whether by causing human extinction or by otherwise permanently crippling human progress 3 multiple scholars have argued based on the size of the cosmic endowment that because of the inconceivably large number of potential future lives that are at stake even small reductions of existential risk have enormous value in one of the earliest discussions of the ethics of human extinction derek parfit offers the following thought experiment 60 i believe that if we destroy mankind as we now can this outcome will be much worse than most people think compare three outcomes 1 peace 2 a nuclear war that kills 99 of the world s existing population 3 a nuclear war that kills 100 2 would be worse than 1 and 3 would be worse than 2 which is the greater of these two differences most people believe that the greater difference is between 1 and 2 i believe that the difference between 2 and 3 is very much greater derek parfit the scale of what is lost in an existential catastrophe is determined by humanity s long term potential what humanity could expect to achieve if it survived 20 from a utilitarian perspective the value of protecting humanity is the product of its duration how long humanity survives its size how many humans there are over time and its quality on average how good is life for future people 20 273 61 on average species survive for around a million years before going extinct citation needed parfit points out that the earth will remain habitable for around a billion years 60 and these might be lower bounds on our potential if humanity is able to expand beyond earth it could greatly increase the human population and surviv...
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