- Career advice & strategy (1,024)
- Ability (23)
- Accidental harm (23)
- Advice for undergraduates (49)
- Being ambitious (27)
- Career capital (209)
- Career planning (409)
- Community & coordination (177)
- Exploration (148)
- How to get a job (47)
- Job satisfaction (286)
- Leverage (7)
- Mental health (62)
- Now vs later (20)
- Personal fit (333)
- PhDs (23)
- Replaceability (10)
- Risk (117)
- Unconventional advice (4)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- AI (145)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Skill-building and career capital (637)
- Communicating ideas (23)
- Computer science (27)
- Early-stage startup employee (5)
- Economics (48)
- Economics PhD (7)
- Experience with an emerging power (59)
- Expertise relevant to a top problem (4)
- Fundraising (18)
- Graduate school (24)
- History (14)
- Law (13)
- Machine learning (28)
- Machine learning PhD (2)
- Organisation-building (9)
- Philanthropic advising (39)
- Philosophy (30)
- Policy and political skills (24)
- Psychology (14)
- Research (213)
- Skills (240)
- Software and tech skills (6)
- Statistics (3)
- Working at a foundation (10)
- Working in congress (1)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Career paths (726)
- AI companies (14)
- AI hardware expertise (12)
- AI policy (73)
- AI safety technical research (66)
- Art & entertainment (7)
- Being a public intellectual (16)
- Biomedical research (32)
- Biorisk strategy & policy (40)
- Building the effective altruism community (21)
- China-related AI safety & governance (13)
- China-Western coordination (13)
- Communication (63)
- Computer science (6)
- Consulting (10)
- Data science (27)
- Earning to give (111)
- Engineering (10)
- Entrepreneurship (66)
- Finance (18)
- Founding a tech startup (34)
- Global priorities research (134)
- Government & policy (138)
- Grantmaking (25)
- High impact executive assistance (9)
- History of large societal trends (9)
- Information security (19)
- Journalism (26)
- Longtermist philanthropy (8)
- Marketing (6)
- Medicine (25)
- Operations (19)
- Organising an effective altruism group (1)
- Philosophy academia (11)
- Politics (53)
- Research in relevant areas (123)
- Research management (11)
- Software engineering (35)
- Specialist in emerging global powers (7)
- Think tank research (5)
- Web design (2)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- World problems (446)
- AI-enabled power grabs (4)
- AI-enhanced decision making (3)
- Building a flourishing future (2)
- Building effective altruism (69)
- Catastrophic AI misuse (3)
- Civilisational resilience (14)
- Climate change (27)
- Engineered pandemics (42)
- Factory farming (28)
- Global health (69)
- Great power conflict (26)
- Institutional decision making (53)
- Moral status of digital minds (14)
- Nuclear war (33)
- Other pressing problems (141)
- Power-seeking AI systems (3)
- Prioritisation frameworks (35)
- S-risks (7)
- Space governance (6)
- Totalitarianism (18)
- Wild animal suffering (14)
- Foundations (477)
- Effective altruism (231)
- Existential risk (126)
- Future generations & longtermism (108)
- Moral patients (16)
- Moral philosophy (120)
- Reasoning and decision-making (130)
- Reasoning well (2)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Other topics (283)
- About 80,000 Hours (68)
- Advocacy (54)
- Anonymous advice (19)
- COVID-19 (24)
- Doing good in your current job (110)
- Donating effectively (38)
- Forecasting (30)
- Income (30)
- User stories (4)
- Volunteering (14)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Top-recommended organisations (127)
- 80,000 Hours (3)
- AI Impacts (1)
- Anthropic (8)
- Center for AI Safety (2)
- Center for Applied Rationality (1)
- Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2)
- Centre for Effective Altruism (1)
- Centre for the Governance of AI (3)
- Charity Entrepreneurship (5)
- DeepMind (11)
- Forethought Foundation (2)
- Founders Pledge (2)
- Future of Humanity Institute (14)
- GiveWell (11)
- Giving What We Can (5)
- Global Priorities Institute (5)
- Good Judgement Inc (1)
- J-PAL (4)
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1)
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (3)
- METR (1)
- Nuclear Threat Initiative (4)
- Open Philanthropy (21)
- OpenAI (18)
- Our World in Data (2)
- Redwood Research (2)
- Rethink Priorities (3)
- Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab (1)
- The Good Food Institute (2)
- Uncategorised (72)
Topic archive: Existential risk
So long as civilisation continues to exist, we’ll have the chance to solve all our other problems, and have a far better future. But if we go extinct, that’s it.
Those concerned about extinction have started a new movement working to safeguard civilisation, which has been joined by Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, and new institutes founded by researchers at Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, and elsewhere.
Risks such as climate change and nuclear war are worrying enough — but there might be still bigger threats. We think that that reducing these risks could be the most important thing you do with your life, and want to explain exactly what you can do to help.
Selected highlights
Working in US AI policy
Article by Niel Bowerman · Last updated July 2023 · First published January 2019
#33 – Oxford’s Anders Sandberg on solar flares, the annual risk of nuclear war, and what if dictators could live forever?
Podcast by Robert Wiblin and Keiran Harris · Published May 29th, 2018
All content tagged "Existential risk"
2025
- Problem profileJune
- Problem profileBlog postBlog postArticleMayApril
- ArticleMarch
- AI guidePodcastGreat power conflict (Updated)Problem profile
2024
October- Stable totalitarianism (Updated)Problem profile
September- Blog postAugust
- Blog post
June- May
- AprilMarch
- Podcast (80k After Hours)
FebruaryJanuary2023
DecemberOctober- PodcastPodcastSeptember
- Blog postAugustJuly
- PodcastPodcast (80k After Hours)June
- Blog postGreat power conflict (First published)Problem profileMay
- Blog postThe 80,000 Hours Podcast on Artificial Intelligence and related topics (First published)ArticleCareer guideMarch
- ArticlePodcast (80k After Hours)PodcastBlog postFebruaryJanuary
2022
DecemberSeptember- Problem profileProblem profileAugust
- ArticleJuly
- Problem profileJune
- PodcastPodcastThe case for reducing existential risks (Updated)ArticleMay
- Blog postAprilMarchFebruary
2021
DecemberNovember- PodcastOctober
- Career reviewJune
- PodcastPodcastMay
- PodcastMarch
2020
DecemberAugust- PodcastJulyAprilMarch
- Blog postProblem profilePodcastFebruary
- PodcastJanuary
2019
DecemberNovemberOctoberAugustJuneMayAprilMarch2018
DecemberOctober- PodcastWays people trying to do good accidentally make things worse, and how to avoid them (First published)ArticleAugust
- PodcastPodcastWhat are the most pressing world problems? (First published)ArticleJulyMay
- PodcastAprilMarchFebruary
2017
NovemberOctober- The case for reducing existential risks (First published)ArticlePodcastSeptemberAugust
- Article
July- Is it fair to say that most social programmes don’t work? (First published)Article
March- Career guide
2016
April- Blog postBlog postJanuary
2015
December- Blog postApril
2014
OctoberJanuary- Blog postBlog post
2013
NovemberOctober- Blog post
August2012
AprilFebruary- Blog post
January



