“So if we drop the baton, succumbing to an existential catastrophe, we would fail our ancestors in a multitude of ways. We would fail to achieve the dreams they hoped for; we would betray the trust they placed in us, their heirs; and we would fail in any duty we had to pay forward the work they did for us. To neglect existential risk might thus be to wrong not only the people of the future, but the people of the past.”

- Toby Ord

Humanity appears to face existential risks: a chance that we'll destroy our long-term potential. We’ll examine why existential risks might be a moral priority, and explore why they are so neglected by society. We’ll also look into one of the major risks that we might face: a human-made pandemic, worse than COVID-19. 

Alongside this, we'll introduce you to the concept of “expected value” and explore whether you could lose all of your impact by missing one crucial consideration.

Key concepts from this session include:

• Expected value: We’re often uncertain about how much something will help. In such circumstances, it may make sense to weigh each of the outcomes by the likelihood that they occur and pick the action that looks best in expectation.
• Crucial considerations: It can be extremely hard to figure out whether some action helps your goal or causes harm, particularly if you’re trying to influence complex social systems or the long term. This is part of why it can make sense to do a lot of analysis of the interventions you’re considering.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.