The problem

[proverbialwisdom]

54. GOOGLE: Oxford human extinction technology

http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/articles/global-commons-and-environment/existential-risk-prevention-global-priority

The biggest existential risks are anthropogenic and related to potential future technologies.

http://anewdomain.net/2013/04/25/oxford-future-of-humanity-institute-tech-existential-risk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530

24 April 2013 Last updated at 05:42 ET
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education correspondent

What are the greatest global threats to humanity? Are we on the verge of our own unexpected extinction?

An international team of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute is investigating the biggest dangers.

And they argue in a research paper, Existential Risk Prevention as a Global Priority, that international policymakers must pay serious attention to the reality of species-obliterating risks. See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12002/abstract

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Dr Bostrom believes we've entered a new kind of technological era with the capacity to threaten our future as never before. These are "threats we have no track record of surviving".

Lack of control

Likening it to a dangerous weapon in the hands of a child, he says the advance of technology has overtaken our capacity to control the possible consequences.

Experiments in areas such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology and machine intelligence are hurtling forward into the territory of the unintended and unpredictable.

Synthetic biology, where biology meets engineering, promises great medical benefits. But Dr Bostrom is concerned about unforeseen consequences in manipulating the boundaries of human biology.

Nanotechnology, working at a molecular or atomic level, could also become highly destructive if used for warfare, he argues. He has written that future governments will have a major challenge to control and restrict misuses.

There are also fears about how artificial or machine intelligence interact with the external world.

Such computer-driven "intelligence" might be a powerful tool in industry, medicine, agriculture or managing the economy.

But it also can be completely indifferent to any incidental damage.

Unintended consequences

These are not abstract concepts.

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More:
http://cser.org/
http://www.existential-risk.org/