Synthetic Diseases And Killer Robots ‘Could Wipe Out Millions’, Report Warns
Man-made diseases and armies of killer robots could wipe out millions of people - but governments are failing to prepare properly for them, a new report warns.
It may sound like the stuff of sci-fi films, but experts said these apocalyptic threats are more likely than many realise.
The report Global Catastrophic Risks, compiled by a team from Oxford University, the Global Challenges Foundation and the Global Priorities Project, ranks dangers that could wipe out 10% or more of the human population.
Sebastian Farquhar, director at the Global Priorities Project, said: ‘There are some things that are on the horizon, things that probably won’t happen in any one year but could happen, which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.
In the longer term, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has been listed alongside catastrophic climate change, nuclear war and pandemics as a threat to humanity.
Mr Farquhar said: 'There is really no particular reason to think that humans are the pinnacle of creation and the best thing that is possible to have in the world.
'It seems conceivable that some AI systems might at some point in the future be able to systematically out-compete humans in a bunch of different domains and if you have a sufficiently powerful form of that kind of artificially intelligent system, then it might be the case that if its goals don’t match with what humanity’s values are then there might be some sort of adverse consequences.
'So this doesn’t depend on it becoming conscious, it doesn’t depend on it hating humanity, it is just a matter of it being powerful, its objectives being opaque or hard to determine for its creators, and it being in some sense indifferent to at least some of the things we find valuable.’
The biggest long term threat to civilization is natural and engineered pandemics and nuclear war, according to the report.
Strides have been taken to cut the number of nuclear weapons in the world, but the rise of synthetic biology could open the door to the creation of 'off the shelf’ deadly viruses.
