Toby Ord: Existential risk and the future of humanity

What this episode covers

Since the invention of nuclear weapons, humanity has had the power to wipe itself out. And with the rise of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, this capability is expanding over time. Beyond these risks, long-term challenges like climate change are testing our willingness to look ahead and stave off distant disasters, and our response to the COVID pandemic is not much of a reassurance that we will handle this test well. So today I’m speaking with Toby Ord, who argues that safeguarding humanity’s future from these natural and manmade threats is the defining challenge of our time. Toby is a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, where he studies the long-term future of humanity. He is the author of The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity , released earlier this year. You can also check out the transcript of this podcast here .

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.