AI and nuclear war threaten human extinction by 2100, report warns

Nuclear conflict, malicious use of AI, and bioweapons represent key threats to the extinction of humans by 2100, a new report has warned.

Research published in The Lancet has identified threats to humanity, covering disease, social and economic conditions, environmental change, technology and conflict.

According to the report, threats with extinction potential include “nuclear conflict with nuclear famine and the malicious use of AI, including bioweapons development.”

Although it said the likelihood of nuclear conflict and the malicious use of AI “remain low,” they present “consequential threats” because of their potential for extinction.

The Lancet’s commission said that action to prevent nuclear conflict could avert an estimated 133 million deaths, while action to reduce the risk of malicious AI could avert an estimated 10.4 billion DALYs, which measures the overall burden of disease to populations.

Commission Co-Chair Dr. Kanem notes: “Recent global events show us just how quickly stability can give way to crisis, and how costly it is to respond only after disaster strikes. And the global threats to health risk amplifying existing inequalities, with the greatest burden falling on the most vulnerable communities. Yet the future is not inevitable. The Commission makes a compelling case for reshaping the future by embedding foresight into decision-making. Governments and communities must act decisively starting today, to protect health and build a fairer, more peaceful and more secure future for the coming generations.”

Other threats such as asteroid collision and supervolcanoes were not included in the study because the probabilities of these events occurring in the next 75 years were deemed to be “extremely low,” the report said.

After extinction, the researchers highlighted 15 issues considered “major catastrophic threats,” which included air pollution, antimicrobial resistance, childhood malnutrition, climate change, conventional conflict, and collapse of development assistance for health (DAH).

Naturally occurring pandemics, obesity, and mental health were also included in this category.

The authors concluded that global life expectancy is expected to continue rising, but healthy life expectancy is projected to improve more slowly, meaning people could spend more years living with poor health.

It warned that although the frequency of “moderate pandemics” has declined over the past century in line with advances in vaccines, antibiotics and surveillance, “catastrophic pandemics” show no comparable decline.

Meanwhile, it said the greatest opportunities to improve future health of populations sit outside traditional health policy.

The report said: “In the past 6 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the world that unexpected or unforeseen events can dramatically alter human health and human society. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is another event radically altering European governments’ assessment of security. Recent shifts in US foreign policy have exacerbated policy uncertainty. Climate trends unfolding steadily over the past century and accelerating since 1980 have now been firmly planted in the policy agendas of many states.”

This and the “abrupt reductions in development assistance for health have disrupted delivery programmes in low-income countries and were given as examples of threats that have not been seen in past data, but are emerging as “critical dimensions of government and intergovernmental”

The “dramatic” increase in artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models in the early 2020s was also described as an example of something that is “transforming the sense of stability, order, and predictability in many domains of human endeavour.”