Listen to Episode Here
Show Notes
Toby Ord’s “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity" has emerged as a new cornerstone text in the field of existential risk. The book presents the foundations and recent developments of this budding field from an accessible vantage point, providing an overview suitable for newcomers. For those already familiar with existential risk, Toby brings new historical and academic context to the problem, along with central arguments for why existential risk matters, novel quantitative analysis and risk estimations, deep dives into the risks themselves, and tangible steps for mitigation. "The Precipice" thus serves as both a tremendous introduction to the topic and a rich source of further learning for existential risk veterans. Toby joins us on this episode of the Future of Life Institute Podcast to discuss this definitive work on what may be the most important topic of our time.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- An overview of Toby's new book
- What it means to be standing at the precipice and how we got here
- Useful arguments for why existential risk matters
- The risks themselves and their likelihoods
- What we can do to safeguard humanity's potential
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
03:35 What the book is about
05:17 What does it mean for us to be standing at the precipice?
06:22 Historical cases of global catastrophic and existential risk in the real world
10:38 The development of humanity’s wisdom and power over time
15:53 Reaching existential escape velocity and humanity’s continued evolution
22:30 On effective altruism and writing the book for a general audience
25:53 Defining “existential risk”
28:19 What is compelling or important about humanity’s potential or future persons?
32:43 Various and broadly appealing arguments for why existential risk matters
50:46 Short overview of natural existential risks
54:33 Anthropogenic risks
58:35 The risks of engineered pandemics
01:02:43 Suggestions for working to mitigate x-risk and safeguard the potential of humanity
01:09:43 How and where to follow Toby and pick up his book
This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.
All of our podcasts are also now on Spotify and iHeartRadio! Or find us on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
