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51 results for "existential risk" — page 1 of 3
ZD_2_17 — AI Alignment & Existential Risk
AI alignment — the challenge of ensuring artificial intelligence systems pursue goals consistent with human values and intentions — has emerged as one of the defining technical and philosophical problems of the 21st cent
S_4_01 — Existential Risk Taxonomy
Existential risk (x-risk) refers to any event that could permanently curtail humanity's long-term potential — including extinction, civilizational collapse without recovery, or irreversible loss of value (e.g., permanent
S_1_01 — Artificial General Intelligence and Existential Risk
Artificial General Intelligence — a system with human-level or greater cognitive capabilities across ALL domains — may be the most consequential invention in human history. Current foundational AI systems (GPT-4, Claude,
S_5_17 — Risk Science, Catastrophe Modeling & Existential Assessment
Risk science encompasses the systematic identification, assessment, and mitigation of threats across scales from individual hazards to civilization-ending catastrophes. From the actuarial tables of Edmond Halley (1693) t
ZE_1_19 — Risk Ethics & the Precautionary Principle: Uncertainty, Decision-Making & Moral Responsibility
Risk ethics — the philosophical study of how moral agents should make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, incomplete information, and potentially catastrophic consequences — has become one of the most practically
ZE_5_20 — Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
The ethics of artificial intelligence addresses the moral, social, and existential challenges arising from the development and deployment of increasingly powerful AI systems. [KEY FINDING] Core issues span three horizons
ZE_4_15 — Ethics of Nuclear Weapons: Deterrence, MAD, and Abolition
The ethics of nuclear weapons constitutes one of the most consequential moral questions of the modern era: Can the threat to annihilate millions of civilians ever be morally justified? Since the atomic bombings of Hirosh
S_4_03 — Nuclear War and Civilizational Risk
Nuclear war remains one of the most acute existential threats to human civilization, with approximately 12,500 warheads in global arsenals as of 2024 and the Doomsday Clock at a historic 90 seconds to midnight. Peer-revi
INTERDOC_69 — Suppression and Cascade Risk as Entangled Institutional Failure Modes
Two phenomena that appear to belong to different domains — knowledge suppression (why institutions reject inconvenient truths) and cascade collapse (why complex civilizations fail catastrophically) — share a common deep
INTERDOC_32 — AI, Consciousness, and the Ethical Frontier
[KEY FINDING] The alignment problem — ensuring that artificial intelligence systems pursue goals aligned with human values — has moved from science fiction to mainstream AI safety research. Stuart Russell (Human Compatib
ZC_5_10 — Sociology of Disaster: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Social Amplification of Risk
The sociology of disaster studies the social dimensions of catastrophic events — earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, pandemics, industrial accidents, nuclear meltdowns, wildfires, and increasingly, climate-driven extreme ev
ZD_2_07 — Artificial General Intelligence — Architectures and Challenges
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — a hypothetical AI system capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can, with the same flexibility, generality, and ability to learn and transfer knowledge across dom
ZE_3_09 — Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Consciousness
AI ethics examines the moral dimensions of creating systems that can reason, learn, and act autonomously. The field emerged from theoretical foundations (Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," 1950) but became
ZE_1_08 — Existentialist Ethics
Existentialist ethics grounds morality not in external systems (divine commands, rational duties, utilitarian calculus) but in the radical freedom and responsibility of the individual. Originating with Søren Kierkegaard
S_2_18 — Biosecurity and Dual-Use Research: Risks of Advanced Biotechnology
Biosecurity — the prevention of misuse of biological agents, technologies, and knowledge for hostile purposes — has become a critical concern as advances in synthetic biology, DNA synthesis, gene editing (CRISPR-Cas9), a
ZC_5_06 — Environmental Sociology: Risk, Justice, and Ecological Modernization
Environmental sociology studies the reciprocal relationships between human societies and their natural environments — how social structures, economic systems, political institutions, cultural beliefs, and power relations
O_1_10 — Carrington Event and Space Weather Threats to Earth
The Carrington Event of September 1–2, 1859 was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history — caused by a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun that struck Earth's magnetosphere approximately 17.6 h
P_3_03 — Existentialism — Freedom, Anxiety, and Authentic Being
Existentialism is the philosophical movement that places individual existence, freedom, and choice at the center of philosophical inquiry. Originating with Kierkegaard's rebellion against Hegelian system-building and Nie
S_4_04 — Pandemic Risk — Ancient Plagues, Antibiotic Resistance, and Biosecurity
Pandemics have repeatedly reshaped human civilization, from the Plague of Justinian (541 CE, ~25-50 million dead, Yersinia pestis confirmed via ancient DNA) to the Black Death (1347-1353, killing 30-60% of Europe's popul
INTERDOC_57 — Cascade Pattern Across Civilization Resets
Three civilization-altering events — the Younger Dryas climate reversal (c. 12,800 years ago), the Late Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1177 BCE), and the Justinianic Plague (541–549 CE and centuries of recurrence) — share struc
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