Model 7: We colonize one or two systems as a vanity project, realise that it’s a giant pain in the arse and that the benefits inherently don’t outweigh the costs of interstellar travel, and space colonization ends with a whimper.
As precedent, see human moon landings: The US did them a couple of times half a century ago and never did them since, even though it would be presumably be way easier to do now, because the people of earth don’t really see a benefit to doing so.
So I agree that humanity might just choose not to reach the stars. It seems unlikely to me that nobody (or nobody with sufficient resources) would want to do this post-AGI, but it’s possible humanity as a whole prevents other people from expanding (eg worries about building independent power centers that might harm the safety of Earth, or spoilt negotiations, or more idiosyncratic factors).
This is not the most likely existential risk imo, but certainly one to be aware of.
That said, the 1960s-70s moon landing was a large net resource loss. Costed ~ half a percentage point of GDP (!) annually for multiple years and didn’t get anything in return other than a few innovations and one-upping the Soviets. Seems like a pretty different story!
Model 7: We colonize one or two systems as a vanity project, realise that it’s a giant pain in the arse and that the benefits inherently don’t outweigh the costs of interstellar travel, and space colonization ends with a whimper.
As precedent, see human moon landings: The US did them a couple of times half a century ago and never did them since, even though it would be presumably be way easier to do now, because the people of earth don’t really see a benefit to doing so.
So I agree that humanity might just choose not to reach the stars. It seems unlikely to me that nobody (or nobody with sufficient resources) would want to do this post-AGI, but it’s possible humanity as a whole prevents other people from expanding (eg worries about building independent power centers that might harm the safety of Earth, or spoilt negotiations, or more idiosyncratic factors).
This is not the most likely existential risk imo, but certainly one to be aware of.
That said, the 1960s-70s moon landing was a large net resource loss. Costed ~ half a percentage point of GDP (!) annually for multiple years and didn’t get anything in return other than a few innovations and one-upping the Soviets. Seems like a pretty different story!