> We could ignore both asteroids and climate change and according to the best known science there'd be very little impact for vast timespans and possibly no impact ever (before humanity is ended by something else like war).
That's just incorrect. The Tunguska event was a nuclear-weapon scale asteroid. These are predicted to happen once every hundred years or so. If it happens over a populated city millions would die. If a person wrongly concludes this was a surprise nuclear attack, maybe everyone would die, to say nothing of the real risk that the asteroid itself could be big enough to wipe us all out.
There's a lot of uncertainty around climate change, but changing climate patterns will certainly change resource allocations (fresh water, arable land, etc.). This will lead to shortages in places that were once abundant, which could easily lead to wars in which millions die.
> Really stuff like asteroids and climate is a good counter-argument to caring about AI risk.
This. This boggles my mind. Long-tail risks exist, and burying your head in the sand and pretending they don't just places millions of lives at risk, and potentially the entire human race. You don't have to think these are top priorities, but to dismiss them as complete unimportant is frankly bonkers.
That's just incorrect. The Tunguska event was a nuclear-weapon scale asteroid. These are predicted to happen once every hundred years or so. If it happens over a populated city millions would die. If a person wrongly concludes this was a surprise nuclear attack, maybe everyone would die, to say nothing of the real risk that the asteroid itself could be big enough to wipe us all out.
There's a lot of uncertainty around climate change, but changing climate patterns will certainly change resource allocations (fresh water, arable land, etc.). This will lead to shortages in places that were once abundant, which could easily lead to wars in which millions die.
> Really stuff like asteroids and climate is a good counter-argument to caring about AI risk.
This. This boggles my mind. Long-tail risks exist, and burying your head in the sand and pretending they don't just places millions of lives at risk, and potentially the entire human race. You don't have to think these are top priorities, but to dismiss them as complete unimportant is frankly bonkers.