FLI Podcast: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity with Toby Ord

Toby Ord’s “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity" has emerged as a new cornerstone text in the field of existential risk. The book presents the foundations and recent developments of this budding field from an accessible vantage point, providing an overview suitable for newcomers. For those already familiar with existential risk, Toby brings new historical and academic context to the problem, along with central arguments for why existential risk matters, novel quantitative analysis and risk estimations, deep dives into the risks themselves, and tangible steps for mitigation. "The Precipice" thus serves as both a tremendous introduction to the topic and a rich source of further learning for existential risk veterans. Toby joins us on this episode of the Future of Life Institute Podcast to discuss this definitive work on what may be the most important topic of our time.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-An overview of Toby's new book

-What it means to be standing at the precipice and how we got here

-Useful arguments for why existential risk matters

-The risks themselves and their likelihoods

-What we can do to safeguard humanity's potential

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2020/03/31/he-precipice-existential-risk-and-the-future-of-humanity-with-toby-ord/

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro 

03:35 What the book is about 

05:17 What does it mean for us to be standing at the precipice? 

06:22 Historical cases of global catastrophic and existential risk in the real world

10:38 The development of humanity’s wisdom and power over time  

15:53 Reaching existential escape velocity and humanity’s continued evolution

22:30 On effective altruism and writing the book for a general audience 

25:53 Defining “existential risk” 

28:19 What is compelling or important about humanity’s potential or future persons?

32:43 Various and broadly appealing arguments for why existential risk matters

50:46 Short overview of natural existential risks

54:33 Anthropogenic risks

58:35 The risks of engineered pandemics 

01:02:43 Suggestions for working to mitigate x-risk and safeguard the potential of humanity 

01:09:43 How and where to follow Toby and pick up his book

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