Looking at today’s world, it may make more sense to think that humanity’s greatest threats this century are likely to come from a single pandemic, a devastating war, or an environmental disaster. However, global experts think otherwise. As per them, the greatest threats to human health over the next 75 years could emerge from a dangerous combination of technological advances, geopolitical tensions, climate change, widening inequality and preventable diseases, in short, all the risks that reinforce one another and make societies increasingly vulnerable.
A new global health assessment, published in The Lancet, underlines 17 of these so-called “catastrophic” risks, each potentially capable of stripping away years of healthy life on a massive scale before the century is up.
Out of all of them, two jump right off the page: nuclear war and the deliberate misuse of artificial intelligence, i.e., AI. The experts say either could actually end humanity. Now, they don’t claim this doomsday outcome is likely, but if just one of these scenarios plays out in the worst possible way, it’s game over for our species.