Previous work has referred to such a risk as ‘existential risk’. But this is a misnomer. Existential risk is technically broader and it encompasses another case: the risk of an event that drastically and permanently curtails the potential of humanity. For the rest of this report we characterise the risk as that of extinction where previous work has used ‘existential’.
I was happy to see this endnote, but then I noticed several uses of “existential risk” in this abridged report when I think you should have said “extinction risk”. I’d recommend going through to check this.
It’s good to hear that you agree extinction is the better term in this framework. Though I think it makes sense to talk about the more general ‘existential’ term in the exposition sometimes. In particular, for entirely pedagogical reasons, I decided to leave it with the original terminology in the summary since readers who are already familiar with the original models might skim this post or miss that endnote, and the definition of risk hasn’t changed. I see this report, and the footnote, as asking researchers that, from hereon, we use extinction when the maths are set up like they are here. All that said, I’ve indeed noticed instances after the summary where the conceptual accuracy would be improved by making that swap. Thank you again; I’ll keep a closer eye on this, especially in future revised versions of the full report.
I was happy to see this endnote, but then I noticed several uses of “existential risk” in this abridged report when I think you should have said “extinction risk”. I’d recommend going through to check this.
It’s good to hear that you agree extinction is the better term in this framework. Though I think it makes sense to talk about the more general ‘existential’ term in the exposition sometimes. In particular, for entirely pedagogical reasons, I decided to leave it with the original terminology in the summary since readers who are already familiar with the original models might skim this post or miss that endnote, and the definition of risk hasn’t changed. I see this report, and the footnote, as asking researchers that, from hereon, we use extinction when the maths are set up like they are here. All that said, I’ve indeed noticed instances after the summary where the conceptual accuracy would be improved by making that swap. Thank you again; I’ll keep a closer eye on this, especially in future revised versions of the full report.