When I first heard of Bostrom’s phrase “existential risk”, I felt it was overly philosophical because it sounded like a concept in existentialism. I agree with Owen+Toby’s paper that “extinction risk” is already adequate when talking about extinction.
Words are sticky, so it may be hard to ditch “existential risk”, but if we were doing it over again, I’d choose something else, like “astronomical risks” and “astronomical benefits”.
When I first heard of Bostrom’s phrase “existential risk”, I felt it was overly philosophical because it sounded like a concept in existentialism. I agree with Owen+Toby’s paper that “extinction risk” is already adequate when talking about extinction.
Words are sticky, so it may be hard to ditch “existential risk”, but if we were doing it over again, I’d choose something else, like “astronomical risks” and “astronomical benefits”.