The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

Product Description

Humanity stands at a precipice.
We live at a time of unprecedented innovation. Technology is accelerating faster than at any point in history, granting us ever greater power, and creating ever greater risk. In the twentieth century, we developed the means to destroy ourselves o without developing the moral framework to ensure that we won't.
The Precipice introduces us to the risks to humanity's future, from the familiar man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the greater risks on the horizon from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. With clear and rigorous thinking, Toby Ord calculates the various risk levels, and shows how our own time fits within the larger story of human history. Can we protect the legacy of the hundred billion who have come before us, and secure a future for the trillions of generations that could follow? What can we do, in our present moment, to face the risks head on?
Guided by a positive vision of the long-term future, The Precipice is a call for a new ethical perspective- a major reorientation in the way we see the world, our history, and the role we play in it.Humanity stands at a precipice.
We live at a time of unprecedented innovation. Technology is accelerating faster than at any point in history, granting us ever greater power, and creating ever greater risk. In the twentieth century, we developed the means to destroy ourselves o without developing the moral framework to ensure that we won't.
The Precipice introduces us to the risks to humanity's future, from the familiar man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the greater risks on the horizon from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. With clear and rigorous thinking, Toby Ord calculates the various risk levels, and shows how our own time fits within the larger story of human history. Can we protect the legacy of the hundred billion who have come before us, and secure a future for the trillions of generations that could follow? What can we do, in our present moment, to face the risks head on?
Guided by a positive vision of the long-term future, The Precipice is a call for a new ethical perspective- a major reorientation in the way we see the world, our history, and the role we play in it.
Toby Ord is a moral philosopher focusing on the big picture questions facing humanity. Born in Australia, he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. He is the founder of Giving What We Can and co-founder of the Effective Altruism movement, which has raised more than a hundred million pounds for some of the world's most deserving causes. He has also advised DeepMind, the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council and the UK Prime Minister's Office, among others. He lives in Oxford.