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A
study by the Global Challenges Foundation aims on a first approach
about potential threats that could actually destroy human
civilization. The study claims 12 major threats belonging to four
general sectors of current risks, exogenic risks, emerging risks and
global policy risks.
Briefly:
1.
Extreme Climate Change
As
for all risks there are uncertainties in the estimates, and warming
could be much more extreme than the middle estimates suggest.
Feedback loops could mean global average temperatures increase by 4°C
or even 6°C over pre-industrial levels. Feedbacks could be the
release of methane from permafrost or the dieback of the Amazon
rainforest. The impact of global warming would be strongest in poorer
countries, which could become completely uninhabitable for the
highest range of warming.
Mass
deaths and famines, social collapse and mass migration are certainly
possible in this scenario. Combined with shocks to the agriculture
and biosphere-dependent industries of the more developed countries,
this could lead to global conflict and possibly civilisation
collapse. Further evidence of the risk comes from signs that past
civilisation collapses have been driven by climate change.
5
key factors:
-
The uncertainties in climate sensitivity models, including the tail.
-
The likelihood - or not – of global coordination on controlling
emissions.
-
The future uptake of low carbon economies, including energy, mobility
and food systems.
-
Whether technological innovations will improve or worsen the
situation, and by how much.
-
The long-term climate impact caused by global warming.
2.
Global Pandemic
An
epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human
populations across a large region or even worldwide. There are
grounds for suspecting that such a high- impact epidemic is more
probable than usually assumed. All the features of an extremely
devastating disease already exist in nature: essentially incurable
(Ebola), nearly always fatal (rabies), extremely infectious (common
cold), and long incubation periods (HIV).
If
a pathogen were to emerge that somehow combined these features (and
influenza has demonstrated antigenic shift, the ability to combine
features from different viruses), its death toll would be extreme.
The world has changed considerably, making comparisons with the past
problematic.Today it has better sanitation and medical research, as
well as national and supra-national institutions dedicated to
combating diseases. But modern transport and dense human population
allow infections to spread much more rapidly, and slums can be
breeding grounds for disease.
5
key factors:
- What the true probability distribution for pandemics
is, especially at the tail.
-
The capacity of international health systems to deal with an extreme
pandemic.
-
How fast medical research can proceed in an emergency.
-
How mobility of goods and people, as well as population density, will
affect pandemic transmission.
-
Whether humans can develop novel and effective anti-pandemic
solutions.
3.
Nuclear War
The
likelihood of a full-scale nuclear war between the USA and Russia has
probably decreased. Still, the potential for deliberate or accidental
nuclear conflict has not been removed,
with some estimates putting the risk in the next century or so at
around 10%. A larger impact would depend on whether or not the war
triggered what is often called a nuclear winter or something similar
– the creation of a pall of smoke high in the stratosphere that
would plunge temperatures below freezing around the globe and
possibly also destroy most of the ozone layer.
The
detonations would need to start firestorms in the targeted cities,
which could lift the soot up into the stratosphere. The risks are
severe and recent models have confirmed the earlier analysis. The
disintegration of the global food supply would make mass starvation
and state collapse likely.
5
key factors:
- How relations between current and future nuclear
powers develop.
-
The probability of accidental war.
-
Whether disarmament efforts will succeed in reducing the number of
nuclear warheads.
-
The likelihood of a nuclear winter.
-
The long-term effects of a nuclear war on climate, infrastructure and
technology. A new category of global risk.
4.
Ecological Collapse
This
is where an ecosystem suffers a drastic, possibly permanent,
reduction in carrying capacity for all organisms, often resulting in
mass extinction. Humans are part of the global ecosystem and so
fundamentally depend on it. Species extinction is now far faster than
the historic rate, and attempts to quantify a safe ecological
operating space place humanity well outside it.
Many
of the problems of ecological degradation interact to multiply the
damage and (unlike previous, localised collapses) the whole world is
potentially at risk. It seems plausible that some human lifestyles
could be sustained in a relatively ecosystem independent way, at
relatively low costs. Whether this can be achieved on a large scale
in practice, especially during a collapse, will be a technological
challenge and whether it is something we want is an ethical question.
5
key factors:
- The extent to which humans are dependent on the
ecosystem.
-
Whether there will be effective political measures taken to protect
the ecosystem on a large scale.
-
The likelihood of the emergence of sustainable economies.
-
The positive and negative impacts on the ecosystems of both wealth
and poverty.
-
The long-term effects of an ecological collapse on ecosystems.
5.
Global System Collapse
An
economic or societal collapse on the global scale. The term has been
used to describe a broad range of conditions. Often economic collapse
is accompanied by social chaos, civil unrest and sometimes a
breakdown of law and order. Societal collapse usually refers to the
fall or disintegration of human societies, often along with their
life support systems. The world economic and political system is made
up of many actors with many objectives and many links between them.
Such
intricate, interconnected systems are subject to unexpected
system-wide failures caused by the structure of the network – even
if each component of the network is reliable. This gives rise to
systemic risk, when parts that individually may function well become
vulnerable when connected as a system to a self-reinforcing joint
risk that can spread from part to part, potentially affecting the
entire system and possibly spilling over to related outside systems.
Such effects have been observed in ecology, finance and critical
infrastructure such as power grids. The possibility of collapse
becomes more acute when several independent networks depend on each
other.
5
key factors:
- Whether global system collapse will trigger subsequent
collapses or fragility in other areas.
-
What the true trade-off is between efficiency and resilience.
-
Whether effective regulation and resilience can be developed.
-
Whether an external disruption will trigger a collapse.
-
Whether an internal event will trigger a collapse.
6.
Super-volcano
Any
volcano capable of producing an eruption with an ejecta volume
greater than 1,000 km3. This is thousands of times larger than normal
eruptions. The danger from super-volcanoes is the amount of aerosols
and dust projected into the upper atmosphere. This dust would absorb
the Sun’s rays and cause a global volcanic winter.
The
Mt Pinatubo eruption of 1991 caused an average global cooling of
surface temperatures by 0.5°C over three years, while the Toba
eruption around 70,000 years ago is thought by some to have cooled
global temperatures for over two centuries. The effect of these
eruptions could be best compared with that of a nuclear war. The
eruption would be more violent than the nuclear explosions, but would
be less likely to ignite firestorms and other secondary effects.
5
key factors:
- Whether countries will coordinate globally against
super-volcano risk and damage.
-
The predictability of super-volcanic eruptions.
-
How directly destructive an eruption would be.
-
The effectiveness of general mitigation efforts.
-
How severe the long-term climate effects would be.
7.
Major Asteroid Impact
Large
asteroid collisions – with objects 5 km or more in size – happen
about once every twenty million years and would have an energy a
hundred thousand times greater than the largest bomb ever detonated.
A land impact would destroy an area the size of a nation like
Holland. Larger asteroids could be extinction-level events. Asteroid
impacts are probably one of the best understood of all risks in this
report.
There
has been some discussion about possible methods for deflecting
asteroids found on a collision course with the planet. Should an
impact occur the main destruction will not be from the initial
impact, but from the clouds of dust projected into the upper
atmosphere. The damage from such an “impact winter” could affect
the climate, damage the biosphere, affect food supplies, and create
political instability.
5
key factors:
- Whether detection and tracking of asteroids and other
dangerous space objects is sufficiently exhaustive.
-
How feasible it is to deflect an asteroid.
-
Whether measures such as evacuation could reduce the damage of an
impact.
-
The short- and long-term climate consequences of a collision.
-
Whether our current civilisation could adapt to a post-impact world.
8.
Synthetic Biology
The
design and construction of biological devices and systems for useful
purposes, but adding human intentionality to traditional pandemic
risks. Attempts at regulation or self-regulation are currently in
their infancy, and may not develop as fast as research does. One of
the most damaging impacts from synthetic biology would come from an
engineered pathogen targeting humans or a crucial component of the
ecosystem.
This
could emerge through military or commercial bio-warfare,
bio-terrorism (possibly using dual-use products developed by
legitimate researchers, and currently unprotected by international
legal regimes), or dangerous pathogens leaked from a lab. Of
relevance is whether synthetic biology products become integrated
into the global economy or biosphere. This could lead to additional
vulnerabilities (a benign but widespread synthetic biology product
could be specifically targeted as an entry point through which to
cause damage).
5
key factors:
- The true destructive potential of synthetic biology,
especially the tail risk.
-
Whether the field will be successfully regulated, or successfully
manage to regulate itself.
-
Whether the field will usher in a new era of bio-warfare.
-
Whether the tools of synthetic biology can be used defensively to
create effective counter measures.
-
The dangers of relying on synthetic biologists to estimate the danger
of synthetic biology.
9.
Nanotechnology
Atomically
precise manufacturing, the creation of effective, high-throughput
manufacturing processes that operate at the atomic or molecular
level. It could create new products – such as smart or extremely
resilient materials – and would allow many different groups or even
individuals to manufacture a wide range of things. This could lead to
the easy construction of large arsenals of conventional or more novel
weapons made possible by atomically precise manufacturing.
Of
particular relevance is whether nanotechnology allows the
construction of nuclear bombs. But many of the world’s current
problems may be solvable with the manufacturing possibilities that
nanotechnology would offer, such as depletion of natural resources,
pollution, climate change, clean water and even poverty. Some have
conjectured special self-replicating nanomachines which would be
engineered to consume the entire environment. The misuse of medical
nanotechnology is another risk scenario.
5
key factors:
- The timeline for nanotech development.
-
Which aspects of nanotech research will progress in what order.
-
Whether small groups can assemble a weapons arsenal quickly.
-
Whether nanotech tools can be used defensively or for surveillance.
-
Whether nanotech tools or weaponry are made to be outside human
control.
10.
Unknown Consequences
These
represent the unknown unknowns in the family of global catastrophic
challenges. They constitute an amalgamation of all the risks that can
appear extremely unlikely in isolation, but can combine to represent
a not insignificant proportion of the risk exposure. One resolution
to the Fermi paradox – the apparent absence of alien life in the
galaxy – is that intelligent life destroys itself before beginning
to expand into the galaxy.
Results
that increase or decrease the probability of this explanation modify
the generic probability of intelligent life (self-)destruction, which
includes uncertain risks. Anthropic reasoning can also bound the
total risk of human extinction, and hence estimate the unknown
component. Nonrisk-specific resilience and post-disaster rebuilding
efforts will also reduce the damage from uncertain risks, as would
appropriate national and international regulatory regimes. Most of
these methods would also help with the more conventional, known
risks, and badly need more investment.
5
key factors:
- Whether there will be extensive research into unknown
risks and their probabilities.
-
The capacity to develop methods for limiting the combined probability
of all uncertain risks.
-
The capacity for estimating “out of-model” risks.
-
The culture of risk assessment in potentially risky areas.
-
Whether general, non-risk-specific mitigation or resilience measures
are implemented.
11.
Artificial Intelligence
AI
is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software, and the branch
of computer science that develops machines and software with
human-level intelligence. The field is often defined as “the study
and design of intelligent agents”, systems that perceive their
environment and act to maximise their chances of success. Such
extreme intelligences could not easily be controlled (either by the
groups creating them, or by some international regulatory regime),
and would probably act to boost their own intelligence and acquire
maximal resources for almost all initial AI motivations.
And
if these motivations do not detail the survival and value of
humanity, the intelligence will be driven to construct a world
without humans. This makes extremely intelligent AIs a unique risk,
in that extinction is more likely than lesser impacts. On a more
positive note, an intelligence of such power could easily combat most
other risks in this report, making extremely intelligent AI into a
tool of great potential. There is also the possibility of AI-enabled
warfare and all the risks of the technologies that AIs would make
possible. An interesting version of this scenario is the possible
creation of “whole brain emulations”, human brains scanned and
physically represented in a machine. This would make the AIs into
properly human minds, possibly alleviating a lot of problems.
5
key factors:
- The reliability of AI predictions.
-
Whether there will be a single dominant AI or a plethora of entities.
-
How intelligent AIs will become.
-
Whether extremely intelligent AIs can be controlled, and how.
-
Whether whole brain emulations (human minds in computer form) will
arrive before true AIs.
12.
Future Bad Global Governance
There
are two main divisions in governance disasters: failing to solve
major solvable problems, and actively causing worse outcomes. An
example of the first would be failing to alleviate absolute poverty;
of the second, constructing a global totalitarian state. Technology,
political and social change may enable the construction of new forms
of governance, which may be either much better or much worse.
Two
issues with governance disasters are first, the difficulty of
estimating their probability, and second, the dependence of the
impact of these disasters on subjective comparative evaluations: it
is not impartially obvious how to rank continued poverty and global
totalitarianism against billions of casualties or civilisation
collapse.
5
key factors:
- How the severity of non-deadly policy failures can be
compared with potential casualties.
-
Whether poor governance will result in a collapse of the world
system.
-
How mass surveillance and other technological innovations will affect
governance.
-
Whether there will be new systems of governance in the future.
-
Whether a world dictatorship may end up being constructed.
Full
Report:
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