Thought-provoking from THE GUARDIAN by Labor Party frontbencher
Andrew
Leigh (formatted to
fit the blog) headline:
“One in six chance of a
‘species-ending event’ in next century, Labor MP Andrew Leigh warns”
Exclusive: Former economics professor says biggest dangers humans face are
‘the ones that our technologies’ have wreaked. Leigh borrowed the estimate
of Oxford philosopher Toby Ord in a speech (September 23) exploring
the intersection between catastrophic risk and extreme politics – a topic the
former economics professor and now assistant minister for competition has
examined in his new book: “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?”
Like Toby Ord, who warned in his 2020 book: “The Precipice” is that humans are now less adept at anticipating potential catastrophes that have no precedent in living memory, Leigh says he has come to believe that grappling with catastrophic risk assessment is a “vital issue.”
Leigh has been a Labor member of the
Australian House of Representatives since 2010. He noted that humans are
“playing with technological innovations that pose tangible extinction risk.”
These innovations
include: (1) tens of thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at major cities; (2)
the risk of runaway global heating creating “unstoppable feedback loops”; (3) bio-technology
allowing the creation of deadly pathogens; and (4) computer technology (AI’s) that
“could create a machine that is smarter than us and doesn’t share our goals.”
Leigh said: “A one in six chance of going the way of dodos and
dinosaurs effectively means we are playing a game of Russian roulette with
humanity’s future. In considering
extinction risk, we’re contemplating not one death but rather the death of
billions or possibly trillions of people – not to mention countless animals –
and that’s just the danger over the coming century. If we keep it up for
another millennium, there’s a five in six chance that humans never make it to
the year 3000.”
Leigh noted that
rapidly evolving technological innovation is coinciding with the resurgence of
populism saying: “The philosophy that politics is a conflict between the
pure mass of people and a vile elite.” He said the number of populist leaders
holding office around the world has quintupled since 1990 and notes that “most
are rightwing populists, who demonize intellectuals, immigrants and the
international order.”
Leigh urged people to
view resurgent populism as a “cross-cutting danger to the future of humanity,”
adding: “As Covid-19 demonstrated, populists’ angry approach to politics,
scorn towards experts, and disdain for institutions made the pandemic much
worse.”
He added: “The same goes for other catastrophic risks. If major nations withdraw from international health bodies and climate agreements, the danger rises. Forging an international agreement on artificial intelligence safety will likely prove impossible if the populists run the show.”
He argued the antidote to rising
post-truth isolationism is ensuring people have access to opportunity in a
changing world and governments need to ensure well-paid jobs are sustained in
communities “hit by technological change as education systems need to be
accessible to everyone, not just the fortunate few, and citizens need to be
given reasons to have faith in their democracy.”
Leigh said there are
sensible practical solutions for each existential peril: (1) Cutting carbon
emissions and assisting developing economies to do the same tackles climate
risk; (2) lowering the risk of “atomic catastrophe” involves taking missiles
off hair-trigger alert and adopting a universal principle of no first use; and (3)
adopting programming principles that mandate advanced computers to be observant,
humble and altruistic. That increases the likelihood that supercomputers serve
the goals of humankind while making the case to preserve “the cardinal stoic
virtues of: Courage, prudence, justice, and moderation that can guide a more
principled politics and ultimately shape a better world.”
Somewhat related but succinctly in a more harsh direction is
this recent article from SALON with this headline and brief
intro:
“We're all gonna die! How the
idea of human extinction has reshaped our world”
Introduction to this
article:
The topic
of human extinction — its possibility, its likelihood, even its inevitability —
is everywhere right now. Major media outlets publish articles and
broadcast interviews on the subject, and prominent political figures in
several countries are beginning to take the idea seriously. Some environmental
activists are warning that climate change could threaten humanity’s
survival over the coming centuries, while “AI doomers” are screaming
that the creation of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, in the near
future could lead to the death of literally everyone on Earth.
From the author: “Having studied the history of thinking about human extinction, I can tell you that this is a unique moment in our history. Never before has the idea of human extinction been as widely discussed, debated and fretted over as it is right now. This is underlined by the fact that only about two centuries ago, nearly everyone in the Western world would have agreed that human extinction is impossible. It isn’t how our story ends — because it isn’t how our story could end. There is simply no possibility of our species dying out the way the dodo and dinosaurs did, of disappearing entirely from the universe. Humanity is fundamentally indestructible, these people would have said, a pervasive assumption that dates back to the ancient Greek philosophers.”
“So, what changed from then to now? How did this idea evolve
from being virtually unthinkable two centuries ago to a topic that people can’t
stop talking about today? The answer is: through a series of earth-shattering
epiphanies that unfolded in abrupt shifts beginning
in the mid-19th century. With each shift came a completely new understanding of
our existential precarity in the universe — a novel conception of our
vulnerability to annihilation — and in every case these shifts were deeply
startling and troubling. A close reading of Western history reveals four major
ruptures in our thinking about extinction, three of which happened over the
past 80 years. Together, they tell a harrowing story of profound
psycho-cultural trauma, in which the once-ubiquitous assumption of our
collective indestructibility has been undermined and replaced by the
now-widespread belief that we stand inches from the precipice.”
My 2 Cents: As I said right up front – this is scary
thought-providing stuff. That is the only reason I posted the two articles
above. What lies ahead – well, that depends a thousand factors discussed in the
two articles, too. How we handle things forthcoming is as I’ve said before the
$64,000 question.
Good research into this
topic is called for across all lines of education and science and yes, even
politics.
Smart savvy level-headed people
need to make smart savvy decisions to make sure we survive well beyond the
predicted points in time the articles explore.
I say, stay tuned into and
involved anyway possible to make the future better for all – that is the answer,
but certainly a massive challenge as well to reach a positive outcome for all
humankind.
Thanks for stopping by.
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