existential risks
Civilization-ending dangers
Existential risks are threats capable of causing human extinction or permanently crippling civilization's potential.
The term encompasses catastrophic scenarios—nuclear war, pandemic, asteroid impact, runaway artificial intelligence, ecological collapse.
Unlike ordinary risks, existential risks allow no recovery: Researchers study existential risks to ensure humanity survives long enough to colonize other planets.
The field emerged from concerns that technological power increasingly outpaces wisdom.
- nuclear warArmed conflict using fission weapons
- nuclear winterWartime cooling catastrophe
- doomsday clockMetaphorical threat indicator
- climate changePlanetary atmospheric transformation
- tipping pointThreshold triggering major change
annihilation · hazard · extinction · catastrophe · end of the world · apocalypse · sustainability · artificial intelligence · grey goo · misinformation · peril · pandemic · danger · biosecurity · asteroid impact · threat · countermeasure · destruction
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