On the “bad futures to do with aliens” thing, here are some potential bad futures which extinction risk mitigation makes more likely:
humans get enslaved by / are oppressed by aliens
humans enslave / oppress aliens
humans cause extinction of an alien civilisation, which due to some aspect of their alien biology could have generated more utility than humans ever could
technologically advanced humans create something which accidentally or intentionally kills every alien civilisation in the universe (GCBR, nuclear war and climate change mitigation make this more likely but AI risk mitigation makes this less likely)
I think we also have historical precedent for the first 3 from European colonialism.
On the “bad futures to do with aliens” thing, here are some potential bad futures which extinction risk mitigation makes more likely:
humans get enslaved by / are oppressed by aliens
humans enslave / oppress aliens
humans cause extinction of an alien civilisation, which due to some aspect of their alien biology could have generated more utility than humans ever could
technologically advanced humans create something which accidentally or intentionally kills every alien civilisation in the universe (GCBR, nuclear war and climate change mitigation make this more likely but AI risk mitigation makes this less likely)
I think we also have historical precedent for the first 3 from European colonialism.