Existential Risk

= ""an existential risk is any risk that has the potential to eliminate all of humanity or, at the very least, kill large swaths of the global population, leaving the survivors without sufficient means to rebuild society to current standards of living". [1]

History

From Issarice:

• 19th century–1945 Early development:

"Concerns about human extinction can be traced back to the 19th century[2], with geology unveiling a radically nonhuman past.[3] French scientist Georges Cuvier popularizes the concept of catastrophism in the early 1800s. The first near-Earth asteroid is discovered. Toward the first half of the twentieth century, chemical and biological weapons become a case of concern.

1945 onwards Atomic Age/anthropocene:

"The nuclear holocaust becomes a theoretical scenario shortly after the beginning of this age, which starts following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon. In the 1950s, humanity enters a new age, facing not only existential risks from our natural environment, but also the possibility that we might be able to extinguish ourselves. During the 1960s, mutual assured destruction leads to the expansion of nuclear-armed submarines by both Cold War adversaries. In the same decade, the anti-nuclear movement launches, and the environmentalist movement soon adopts the cause of fighting climate change. Supervolcanoes are discovered in the early 1970s.[6] Global warming becomes widely recognized as a risk in the 1980s. The term "existential threat", beginning to spread around the 1960–80s during the Cold War, takes off in the 1990s and early 2000s.

• 21st century Field of study consolidation:

Nick Bostrom introduces the term "existential risk", which emerges as a unified field of study.[2] By the early 2000s, scientists identify many other threats to human survival, including threats associated with artificial intelligence, biological weapons, nanotechnology, and high energy physics experiments. Unaligned artificial intelligence is recognized by some as the main threat within a century. Today, it is understood that the natural risks are dwarfed by the human-caused ones, turning the risk of extinction into an especially urgent issue."

(https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_existential_risk)

Timelines

• Timeline of existential risk, https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_existential_risk