Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils

Abstract

Existential risk pessimism argues that existential risks are high and that their mitigation should be prioritized. Arguments for this view often appeal to the current level of existential risk. However, even if existential risk today is high, pessimism can still be challenged by showing that reducing that risk has relatively low value. This article explores that challenge. It first presents a simple model of the value of existential risk reduction and shows that the value of risk reduction is independent of the current level of risk. Thus, pessimism does not support the idea that existential risk reduction has high value. The article then suggests four ways to modify the simple model so that pessimism can ground the high value of existential risk reduction. It is shown that only one of those ways is viable. That approach is based on the time of perils hypothesis, which holds that while risks today are high, they may soon be sharply reduced. The article concludes that pessimism can only support the high value of existential risk reduction if existential risk today is very high, but is expected to fall to a low level in the near future. – AI-generated abstract.