Is a Doomsday Catastrophe Likely?

Max Tegmark and Nick Bostrom

Abstract

The risk of a doomsday scenario in which high-energy physics experiments trigger the destruction of the Earth has been estimated to be minuscule1. But this may give a false sense of security: the fact that the Earth has sur­vived for so long does not necessarily mean that such disasters are unlikely, because observers are, by definition, in places that have avoided destruction. Here we derive a new upper bound of one per billion years (99.9% confidence level) for the exogenous terminal-catastrophe rate that is free of such selection bias, using calculations based on the relatively late formation time of Earth.

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Nick Bostrom Ph.D. is a philosopher at Oxford University, the Director of the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, and the Chair of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He co-founded the World Transhumanist Association in 1998 and is a frequent spokesperson and commentator in the media.