How close are we to the end of humanity? Toby Ord, Senior Researcher at Oxford University’s AI Governance Initiative and author of The Precipice, argues that the odds of a civilization-ending catastrophe this century are roughly one in six. In this wide-ranging conversation, we unpack the risks that could end humanity’s story and explore why protecting future generations may be our greatest moral duty.

We explore:

• Why existential risk matters and what we owe the 10,000-plus generations who came before us

• Why Toby believes we face a one-in-six chance of civilizational collapse this century

• The four key types of AI risk: alignment failures, gradual disempowerment, AI-fueled coups, and AI-enabled weapons of mass destruction

• Why racing dynamics between companies and nations amplify those risks, and how an AI treaty might help

• How short-term incentives in democracies blind us to century-scale dangers, along with policy ideas to fix it

• The lessons COVID should have taught us (but didn’t)

• The hidden ways the nuclear threat has intensified as treaties lapse and geopolitical tensions rise

• Concrete steps each of us can take today to steer humanity away from the brink

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Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity-toby-ord

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This episode is brought to you by Brex: The banking solution for startups.

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Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(02:20) An explanation of existential risk, and the study of it

(06:20) How Toby’s interest in global poverty sparked his founding of Giving What We Can

(11:18) Why Toby chose to study under Derek Parfit at Oxford

(14:40) Population ethics, and how Parfit’s philosophy looked ahead to future generations

(19:05) An introduction to existential risk

(22:40) Why we should care about the continued existence of humans

(28:53) How fatherhood sparked Toby’s gratitude to his parents and previous generations

(31:57) An explanation of how LLMs and agents work

(40:10) The four types of AI risks

(46:58) How humans justify bad choices: lessons from the Manhattan Project

(51:29) A breakdown of the “unilateralist’s curse” and a case for an AI treaty

(1:02:15) Covid’s impact on our understanding of pandemic risk

(1:08:51) The shortcomings of our democracies and ways to combat our short-term focus

(1:14:50) Final meditations

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Follow Toby Ord

Website: https://www.tobyord.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobyord

X: https://x.com/tobyordoxford?lang=en

Giving What We Can: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

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Resources and episode mentions

—Books—

• The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316484911

• Reasons and Persons: https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Persons-Derek-Parfit/dp/019824908X

• Practical Ethics: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/052143971X

—People—

• Derek Parfit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Parfit

• Carl Sagan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

• Stuart Russell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_J._Russell

—Other resources—

• DeepMind: https://deepmind.google/

• OpenAI: https://openai.com/

• Manhattan Project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

• The Unilateralist’s Curse and the Case for a Principle of Conformity: https://nickbostrom.com/papers/unilateralist.pdf

• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 1968: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/npt

• The Blitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz

• Operation Warp Speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed

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Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity: Lessons from AI, Pandemics, and Nuclear Threats | Toby Ord (Author of "The Precipice")

The Generalist