How are humans going to become extinct?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22002530

by fromdoon • 12 years ago

28 59 12 years ago

ggreer4• 12 years ago

To summarize: At this point, humanity is its own greatest extinction risk. If we don't destroy ourselves in the next century, we will almost certainly inherit the stars.

For a much deeper treatment of this subject, I recommend Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković. The overarching point is straightforward (see the paragraph above), but the details of each threat are interesting on their own.

1. http://www.amazon.com/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom...

ProAm• 12 years ago

Humans will most definitely be the cause of human extinction on planet Earth. I would put my money on Homo sapiens not making it another million years on the surface of the planet.

visakanv• 12 years ago

Homo sapiens reached anatomical modernity about 200,000 years ago and began to exhibit behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

I suspect that our descendants 1,000,000 years from now wouldn't consider themselves Homo sapiens- primitive, brutish creatures. (Consider how we feel about our ancestors from as recently as 50,000 years ago.)

kamaal5• 12 years ago

A million years is too far. Even if it doesn't happen by then, we are going to run out of energy, get killed by super bugs or hit by a asteroid.

The threat of human driven human extinction is more on the lines of a mutually assured destruction, weaponized nanotechnology or genetic engineering, irreversible climate conditions, over population of the planet etc.

sdrothrock2• 12 years ago

The article talks about disasters that could eliminate humanity, but I wonder if humanity is more likely to become extinct in the sense of no longer being "homo sapiens."

For example, through a technological singularity or even just through accumulated gene therapy over generations.

wmgries• 12 years ago

This is an interesting issue. At what point will our descendants feel that they are different enough from us through natural or guided (by science) evolution?

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

At what point did we determine we were substantially different than apes?

lutusp16• 12 years ago

At what point will our descendants feel that they are different enough from us through natural or guided (by science) evolution?

Easily answered: our species has existed for about 200,000 years. Based on that, and barring any speed-up in the rate of evolution by selection (natural or unnatural), we will have been replaced by another species in another 200,000 years. This will happen no matter what else happens -- assuming we're not subject to any global catastrophe, but simply evolve as a species into something we cannot presently imagine.

arg01• 12 years ago

I wonder if in the case of a technological singularity would you be able to tell that the original species was human? That is to say if we're at the point that we are augmenting our brains to that degree will the difference between a human/dolphin/great ape brain as a base be dwarfed by the technological layers on top of it?

That's getting a bit speculative as a question though. It was more of a thought on how much/how little we might need to change to even constitute not being human.

infogulch3• 12 years ago

You could take the evolutionary viewpoint, where two branches of a species are considered to be distinct when they can no longer breed. Though with the current state of globalization I doubt that could happen... on earth.

ggreer4• 12 years ago

When Bostrom and others talk about humanity, they usually mean humanity and its extremely advanced descendants. They expect some value drift. Robin Hanson puts it rather succinctly in http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/steps-up-the-ladder.ht...:

Of course we should also wonder what we may become as we rise. We are no longer the foragers who began this climb, nor the farmers who climbed just a few floors below, and those ancestors would probably not be pleased with everything we have become. We’ll probably also have misgivings about what our descendants become. But hopefully we will on net be proud of them, just as our ancestors would probably be proud of us.

sdrothrock2• 12 years ago

Thank you for the clarification!

lutusp16• 12 years ago

Okay, hold on a minute. When you say, "humanity and its extremely advanced descendants", when you link to an article containing the phrase "steps up the ladder", when you quote someone saying, "we should also wonder what we may become as we rise" [emphasis added], you're overlooking something basic about evolutionary theory that everyone needs to understand.

And that is that evolution is not necessarily a progression from less to more advanced, from less intelligent to more intelligent, or for that matter, from less anything to more anything.

Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves.

This talk about steps up the ladder and extremely advanced descendants is scientifically ignorant and a New Age fantasy. We are as likely to be replaced by cockroaches as by superbeings.

midnitewarrior• 12 years ago

The disastrous effects of exponential growth will be our demise.

infogulch3• 12 years ago

I blame the economists. They had to drop out of their math degree because they couldn't understand exponential functions... surprise surprise now we have earth-destruction level superpowers trying desperately to keep up an economy based on unsustainable exponential growth.

philwelch2• 12 years ago

Most economics grad schools prefer you have a math degree, actually.

rimantas• 12 years ago

Baseless extrapolation will be you demise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

ilaksh• 12 years ago

I feel a medium-term or maybe even short-term threat (in the next 10-30 years) not of extinction necessarily but of becoming completely irrelevant. People like to jump to the conclusion that artificial super-intelligence will want to eliminate humans. I don't think that is a foregone conclusion at all.

However, if (when) super-intelligent artificial general intelligence "arrives", that pretty much makes normal unaugmented humans the relative equivalent of chimps. It means that our opinions and actions are no longer historically relevant. We will be, relatively speaking, obsolete mentally disabled people running along doing relatively stupid things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Juh7Xh_70

In order for our opinions and abilities to actually matter relative to the super-doings and super-thoughts of the new AIs, we really _must_ have this magical nano-dust or something that integrates our existing homo sapien 1.0 brains with some type of artificial super-intelligence.

So that is what I am worried about -- will the super-AIs show up before the high bandwidth nano-BCIs (brain-computer interfaces) or before I can afford them.

Of course, in the long run there may not be a good reason for AIs to use regular human bodies/brains at all and so that may be phased out for subsequent generations.

salmonellaeater• 12 years ago

Even an AI with innocuous goals will destroy humanity[1]. It would have to have explicitly pro-human goals in order to be anywhere near 'safe.'

[1] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

kamaal5• 12 years ago

Well actually, no!

There are a lot of things to this Armageddon-through-AI equation. Firstly this thing called 'energy'. A paper clip maximizer will long reach its demise before converting a maximum part of planet to paper clips, merely because it needs a lot of resources to produce energy, and maintain itself too.

In fact true AI would not destroy anything. Because true AI would know it doesn't have sufficient data to make any such decisions.

Zigurd• 12 years ago

Global thermonuclear war is still the #1 risk for destroying civilization and having a good chance of killing every human on the planet.

ekianjo2• 12 years ago

Unlikely to kill every human on the planet, though, but to destroy the civilization, yes, and to make us go back in time in terms of scientific progress/knowledge etc... yes. In other words, it would make it way harder for humans to survive in the long run.

sentientmachine3• 12 years ago

Even then it would probably not end our species. Even if every country had nuclear weapons and simultaneously vaporized every square inch of land surface (very unlikely), there would be a few carnival cruises and people who escaped to underground bunkers to hold out for enough years to repopulate some place later. It would be 99% losses, but the tough ones would survive. It may take a few thousand years to get back to where we were, but the buried technology would be found, and we would quickly get back to this point, with a lot more genetic resistance to the radiation fallout.

lutusp16• 12 years ago

Even then it would probably not end our species. Even if every country had nuclear weapons and simultaneously vaporized every square inch of land surface (very unlikely), there would be a few carnival cruises and people who escaped to underground bunkers to hold out for enough years to repopulate some place later.

This is very, very likely, and there's even concrete evidence, based on the fact that the human race was nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, but recovered.

70,000 years ago a huge volcanic eruption with global consequences called the "Toba event" reduced the human population to somewhere between 3,000 - 10,000 people. We know this by analysis of our DNA, which carries a lot of information that can be used to assess our genetic history. That record shows that a severe genetic bottleneck took place 70,000 years ago, and geographic evidence shows a corresponding massive volcanic event thought to be responsible. More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

lutusp16• 12 years ago

A quote: " ... international policymakers must pay serious attention to the reality of species-obliterating risks."

Are these people all completely ignorant of evolution and science? No matter what happens in the future, one or another species-obliterating risk is a certainty. Here's why:

1. Our species has existed for about 200,000 years.

2. On that basis, and given our present knowledge of biology and evolution by natural selection, it's reasonable to assume that, within another 200,000 years, we will have been replaced by another species who either successfully competed with us, or into whom we simply evolved over time.

3. Human beings are a note, perhaps a measure, in a natural symphony. We're not the symphony, and we're certainly not the reason the music exists.

4. Based on the above estimate, there will be 10,000 more human generations, after which our successors will no longer resemble modern humans, in the same way that our ancestors from 200,000 years ago did not resemble us.

5. We need to get over ourselves -- our lives are a gift, not a mandate.

6. I plan to enjoy my gift, and not take myself too seriously. How about you?

sentientmachine3• 12 years ago

Our planet needs to create at least one offspring with a good chance of sprouting a fresh batch of DNA based life on another planet before we send ourselves back into the stone age. If we don't, there are only so many shots left for us to become a space faring civilization again. If our species can't get off this planet. We may die as surly as an ant colony in the middle of the desert. DNA based life on this planet will halt, without anyone to carry on the carnival somewhere else in the universe.

This is serious business. If we don't fill the entire universe with efficient replicators to speed up the consumption of all energy to equilibrium. Then the reason the universe was created will have been for nothing. The stars must not be allowed to run down without our first harvesting them for our multitude of shenanigans.

lutusp16• 12 years ago

Our planet needs to create at least one offspring with a good chance of sprouting a fresh batch of DNA based life on another planet before we send ourselves back into the stone age.

I hate to break this to you, but evolution isn't about humans or dolphins or spacefarers, it's about genes -- evolution is genes replicating, using organisms as vessels.

In answer to the old question about which came first, the chicken or the egg, an evolutionary scientist answers, "a chicken is an egg's way to make another egg."

Also, at a more mundane level, by the time our descendants are scattered across all the local star systems, they will be so different from us that we won't recognize them or feel any special kinship.

But on reading your post to the end, I see you're probably kidding. Oh, well.

kamaal5• 12 years ago

> Then the reason the universe was created will have been for nothing.

The whole universe was created for nothing. No one cast a magical spell for it to come to being. Nothing that is happening is happening for a reason.

Its just some laws of physics at play.

We came to be only through some minute chance.

GuiA• 12 years ago

Are these people all completely ignorant of evolution and science?

Mostly. Talk to your local mayor, deputy, senator, etc and you will see that these people live in worlds very different from ours.

edavison12• 12 years ago

Eh. I dunno whether I am just optimistic, but let's try to remember that certainty isn't part of the scientific vocabulary; almost by definition science never seeks to provide a final answer on any subject and remains open to further inquiry/falsifiability.

So. I believe one of the reasons humankind is so awesome is that we have the capacity to be more than just a note in your natural symphony; we are constantly changing, creating and inventing— and I think it's entirely up to us whether we continue to flourish. Not to get all mystical, but perhaps in time the notion that we are 'the reason the music exists' will not seem super far-fetched. I guess I just think that human consciousness is so unique and cool that it is worth going to great lengths to preserve it, and to hell with what's considered 'natural'.

lutusp16• 12 years ago

Eh. I dunno whether I am just optimistic, but let's try to remember that certainty isn't part of the scientific vocabulary; almost by definition science never seeks to provide a final answer on any subject and remains open to further inquiry/falsifiability.

Yes, that's true, but my point isn't a scientific one, it's a mathematical one. Given enough time, the human species will disappear. It's an equation, not a theory open to empirical test -- but it's certainly supported by evidence from other species.

... and I think it's entirely up to us whether we continue to flourish.

This denies a role for nature, from which we sprang. Given that, if we "thrive" and are not outcompeted by some other species, then instead the form of our thriving will be to evolve to the point where present-day people wouldn't be able to recognize the outcome as human.

I say this based on the copious evidence buried in layers of rock that records billions of years of evolution of countless species, of which we are one.

I guess I just think that human consciousness is so unique and cool that it is worth going to great lengths to preserve it, and to hell with what's considered 'natural'.

More New Age fantasy. When we try to improve on nature, because of our intellectual limitations we instead become nature's obedient servants.

spingsprong• 12 years ago

"1. Our species has existed for about 200,000 years.

When our species had existed for around 5 years, does that mean it was reasonable to assume that within another 5 years, we will have been replaced by another species?

kamaal5• 12 years ago

That arguments sounds like a classic religious argument against evolution. 'If we came from the monkeys, why aren't currently monkey's turning into humans' like argument.

The answer is evolution is more like a fork/branch than modifications on the trunk. Mutations happen all the time, every cancer victim, is a victim of mutation. But when the gene begins to spread and take root rapidly, at some point we get that gene dominant among a species.

A lot will happen over the next 200,000 years. We will likely change in major ways.

But if you were to take this whole singularity thing seriously we may not even need all that. By 2045 you can live on eternally on the cloud.

lutusp16• 12 years ago

When our species had existed for around 5 years, does that mean it was reasonable to assume that within another 5 years, we will have been replaced by another species?

You're missing the point that our species didn't arrive that quickly. From the perspective of 199,995 years ago, assuming a certain amount of intelligence, our forebears would make a similar assessment -- that they had assumed their present form some hundreds of thousands of years ago. And we have copious fossil records to support the idea of a typical duration for individual species before they disappear.

In any case, it doesn't matter which numbers one chooses within wide limits -- the fact is that our species will disappear, no matter what we do, within, say, 500,000 years at the most -- meaning our descendants will not be recognizable to use, could not interbreed with us, and would not be obvious kindred spirits to us.

We're a transient species, and we're not in charge, nature is.

Houshalter3• 12 years ago

This is the most ridiculous comment here. You are literally arguing against the premise of preventing the destruction of the world. Screw that, I don't want to die, I don't want humanity to die, and I know few people who do.

Nothing is going to replace humanity if we kill ourselves first. Gradual evolution isn't want these people are talking about anyways, and there is no reason evolution is inevitable. Soon we will have the technology to control DNA however we want.

How are humans going to become extinct?

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