The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

"The Precipice is a book I regard as a complement to What We Owe the Future . It is making the case that there is a serious chance of an existential catastrophe in our lifetime, an event that would permanently foreclose on all of humanity’s future potential. Some such risks include the extinction of humanity by engineered pathogens or a takeover by a rogue AI or AI systems that have advanced to be more intelligent than humans but don’t share our goals. Also, more familiar events like asteroids, super volcanoes and so on. He gives us this amazingly detailed and balanced account of those different existential risks and what we can do about them. I think his case is fairly compelling. That’s right. We actually talked about that, the choice to put a number on it, before he published the book. He didn’t think it would be a big deal, but I thought that a lot of people would talk about it. He’s not saying it’s an objective chance. It’s not that he’s very confident that it’s one in six, but that’s his best guess. And, honestly, my estimate doesn’t differ that much from his."