Dear Kanchan Parajuli

Beyond the oft-cited catastrophic events, a more insidious pathway to extinction could emerge from the unchecked advancement of technology. The development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) presents a profound existential risk if its goals were to become misaligned with human survival and values. An AGI operating with a seemingly innocuous directive could, with superhuman intelligence, pursue its objectives in ways that inadvertently compromise the planet's biosphere or directly utilise human atoms for other purposes, rendering us extinct not through malice but as a mere footnote in its operational process. Similarly, advances in biotechnology, while offering great benefits, lower the barrier to creating engineered pathogens capable of evading all existing treatments and controls, posing a risk of a deliberately or accidentally released agent with near-total lethality.

Another significant, though perhaps slower-moving, threat lies in the compounding and irreversible destabilisation of Earth's systems. While not an immediate explosion of violence, a runaway greenhouse effect, akin to the climatic conditions that made Venus uninhabitable, represents a terminal threat over a longer timescale. This could be triggered by the activation of numerous reinforcing feedback loops, such as massive methane releases from thawing permafrost and the drastic reduction of the planet's albedo due to lost ice cover. The consequent extreme temperatures, collapse of food systems, and breakdown of the habitable climate niche would ultimately threaten the species' survival not through a single event, but through an inexorable, systemic failure of our planetary life-support systems.

I hope this helps.

Dear Kanchan Parajuli and Félix Oscar Socorro Márquez , interesting discussion and suggestions! I find it interesting that the only truly natural cause identified in the above is asteroids! All the others can be summed by something labelled 'human hubris' at best or ' (some) human's greed, selfishness and wickedness' at worst. So yeah, I do think that men's (unfortunately all the technobros and crazy presidents seem to be men) may be lead us to human wipeout, or even a partial human wipeout quite soon.

However, I remember having a discussion with a friend, who convinced me that perhaps the wipeout won't be total, it will be for example 70%-80% of humans on Earth. However, I don't know what's worse: 70-80% of the human race disappearing through no fault of themselves or everybody disappearing.

The good news are for the Earth: Being a rock, it will definitely survive human wipeout :)

I hope the above is useful,

Best Wishes,

Haris

I discuss some possibilities of disasters leading to human extinction in:

1. Book https://global.oup.com/academic/product/disaster-by-choice-9780198841357

2. Paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2019.100008

Dear Ilan Kelman ,

They both look fascinating! Here in Cyprus we could have used their advice a bit, last month we had the most destructive fire ever, and all our president could utter was how we should expect this because of climate change. I think your work could've been very useful in that respect! I really wish i could engage with this more!

Best Wishes,

Haris

Dear Ilan Kelman , just bumped onto this, I don't know if it's similar to your stuff (or even if you were involved in it or against it): https://www.undrr.org/our-impact/campaigns/no-natural-disasters