How are humans going to become extinct?

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530

How are humans going to become extinct?

What are the greatest global threats to humanity? Are we on the verge of our own unexpected extinction?

An international team of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute is investigating the biggest dangers.

And they argue in a research paper, Existential Risk as a Global Priority, that international policymakers must pay serious attention to the reality of species-obliterating risks.

Last year there were more academic papers published on snowboarding than human extinction.

The Swedish-born director of the institute, Nick Bostrom, says the stakes couldn't be higher. If we get it wrong, this could be humanity's final century.

So what are the greatest dangers?

First the good news. Pandemics and natural disasters might cause colossal and catastrophic loss of life, but Dr Bostrom believes humanity would be likely to survive.

This is because as a species we've already outlasted many thousands of years of disease, famine, flood, predators, persecution, earthquakes and environmental change. So the odds remain in our favour.

And in the time frame of a century, he says the risk of extinction from asteroid impacts and super-volcanic eruptions remains "extremely small".

Even the unprecedented self-inflicted losses in the 20th Century in two world wars, and the Spanish flu epidemic, failed to halt the upward rise in the global human population.

Nuclear war might cause appalling destruction, but enough individuals could survive to allow the species to continue.

If that's the feelgood reassurance out of the way, what should we really be worrying about?

Dr Bostrom believes we've entered a new kind of technological era with the capacity to threaten our future as never before. These are "threats we have no track record of surviving".

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[Faithfree]

The biggest risk - fundamentalist religion or ideology gets cutting edge technology.

[Audley Strange]

Since it's Bostrom, I'd imagine he thinks the superbeings would turn the power off or the computer crashes or gets corrupted.

[JimC]

We all turn gay?

[Blind groper]

There is no short term risk of extinction. Nor even a short term risk of civilisation collapsing. If we define short term as less than 100 years.

In the longer term???
I do not think it is possible to make credible assessments over more than 100 years, because things are changing so fast.

[Tero]

Search rabbits and Australia. Same story. They can no longer go "extinct."

[pErvinalia]

Rise of the machines. They enslave us for bio-energy and when they work out how to grow us in a lab, then they kill us all off.

[Scott1328]

The singularity, man! We become the Borg!

[Blind groper]

I always thought that bit in the Matrix about bioenergy was almost the biggest piece of bullshit in those movies. If we had the technology for the computers of that capability, we would have nuclear fusion, and the artificial intelligences would never have had need of humans at all. In fact, I found the endings to those movies very bad. I could come up with a better ending in my sleep.

[Audley Strange]

I always thought that bit in the Matrix about bioenergy was almost the biggest piece of bullshit in those movies. If we had the technology for the computers of that capability, we would have nuclear fusion, and the artificial intelligences would never have had need of humans at all. In fact, I found the endings to those movies very bad. I could come up with a better ending in my sleep.

What, you weren't satisfied with Keanu Reeves being anti-virus software? I was always struck by how preposterous having giant machines was, since as you say the energy requirements would have been gargantuan. If they were so smart, why did they not go smaller? They could have had a whole host of nano-parasitical machines.

Damn your eyes man, you've got me talking about those shitty shitty movies.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I've given this a lot of thought, weighed up all of the pros and cons, listened to the arguments and investigated the facts. I can come to only one conclusion. The human race will become extinct by the last human dying.

[Tero]

If the last two are of the same sex, they are technically extinct.

[FBM]

If we don't find a way to do ourselves in first, I'd guess a near-Earth supernova.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

If the last two are of the same sex, they are technically extinct.

Cloning?

[Tero]

Well, two females, then! Guys aren't much for birthing.