Executive summary: The post analyzes various definitions of “existential catastrophe”, concluding that the preferred definition is an event causing the permanent loss of a large fraction of the expected value of Earth-originating intelligent sentient life, including non-biological life.
Key points:
Human extinction is not necessarily an existential catastrophe if another intelligent sentient species evolves afterwards, which the author argues is likely for non-AI catastrophes.
Existential catastrophes can occur without human extinction, such as through drastic population reduction, totalitarian control, or extreme climate change.
Defining existential catastrophe in terms of expected value loss requires clarifying the relevant probability distribution and the meaning of “brings about”.
The preferred definition qualifies the loss as permanent, excluding temporary losses from events like human extinction followed by species re-evolution or caused by benevolent non-sentient AI.
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Executive summary: The post analyzes various definitions of “existential catastrophe”, concluding that the preferred definition is an event causing the permanent loss of a large fraction of the expected value of Earth-originating intelligent sentient life, including non-biological life.
Key points:
Human extinction is not necessarily an existential catastrophe if another intelligent sentient species evolves afterwards, which the author argues is likely for non-AI catastrophes.
Existential catastrophes can occur without human extinction, such as through drastic population reduction, totalitarian control, or extreme climate change.
Defining existential catastrophe in terms of expected value loss requires clarifying the relevant probability distribution and the meaning of “brings about”.
The preferred definition qualifies the loss as permanent, excluding temporary losses from events like human extinction followed by species re-evolution or caused by benevolent non-sentient AI.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.