Global catastrophic risks
by Nick Bostrom · first published 2008
9mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2009–2025first – last mentioned
60% recommend20% neutral20% critical
"In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes." "Bostrom pioneered the concept of existential risk and the simulation argument. He developed the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects and is the auth
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…point, humanity is its own greatest extinction risk. If we don't destroy ourselves in the next century, we will almost certainly inherit the stars. For a much deeper treatment of this subject, I recommend Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković. The overarching point is straightforward (see the paragraph above), but the details of each threat are interesting on their own. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom...
on “How are humans going to become extinct?” ↗A good read on this subject: "Global Catastrophic Risks", edited by Nick Bostrom. You can also check out the Lifeboat Foundation: Lifeboat.com
on “Yehuda Yudkowsky, 1985-2004” ↗Indeed. If you want to find out more, the best book that I've found on this subject is _Global Catastrophic Risks_, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic: http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom... "In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity…
on “Happy Petrov day” ↗I think there's reason for concern. I have, but haven't read Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence", but I think it can lays out the risk scenario in depth. I have read Bostrom's "Global Catastrophic Risks", which treats AI in a chapter rather than a book, and I found the argument for AI being a genuine threat convincing.
on “Ask HN: Are leaders genuinely afraid of AI or do they have an agenda?” ↗"The AI neither hates you, nor loves you, but you are made out of atoms that it can use for something else." —Eliezer Yudkowsky, Global Catastrophic Risks p. 333.[1] Apparently Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies[2] does a better job of highlighting the dangers of AI, though I haven't read it yet. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom...…
on “Why Is Our Sci-Fi So Glum About A.I.?” ↗A little bit of history/context around this. The genesis for most of this public facing, high profile threat warning came right after Musk read the Nick Bostrom book: Global Catastrophic Risks in 2011 [1]. That seems to have been the catalyst for being publicly vocal about concerns. That accelerated into the OpenAI issue after Bostrom published Superintelligence. For years before that, the…
on “Ask HN: Is AI threat overblown?” ↗…could sell the USB stick in a little box which protects it from electromagnetic interference in the event of a solar flare or EMP. I suppose the most important knowledge to preserve is knowledge about global catastrophic risks, so after the event, humanity can put the pieces back together and stop something similar from happening again. Too bad this book is copyrighted or you could download it to the USB stick: https://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostro...…
on “Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia” ↗…writing from Yudkowski. Bostrom gives no clear pathway to AGI. Neither does Yudkowski in his own writings or Barrat (Our final invention). By the way Super intelligence is kind of an offshoot book from Global Catastrophic Risks. All of them take these interesting approaches, WBE, BCI, AGI etc... and just assume they will achieve the goal without looking realistically about where the field is or how it would get there. So what…
on “What you wanted to know about AI” ↗something which has a clear and rational path to becoming dangerous But this is exactly the point, it DOESN'T have a clear and rational path. Go read Superintelligence again, or go read Global Catastrophic Risks or any of the other books like "Our last invention." All of it, across the board is wild speculation about paperclip maximizers and out of control drones. There is no path, no one has a path - not even…
on “Technology predictions” ↗