Back
Ord (2020): The Precipice
webtheprecipice.com·theprecipice.com/
Foundational longtermist text by Oxford philosopher Toby Ord; frequently cited in AI safety and EA communities as a comprehensive introduction to existential risk, including AI misalignment as a major threat category.
Metadata
Importance: 82/100bookprimary source
Summary
Toby Ord's book argues that humanity faces unprecedented existential risks from nuclear weapons, engineered pandemics, and unaligned AI, and that reducing these risks is among the most pressing moral priorities of our time. It grounds longtermism in rigorous analysis of risk probabilities and makes the case that safeguarding humanity's long-run future is an urgent ethical imperative.
Key Points
- •Catalogs and quantifies existential risks including nuclear war, climate change, engineered pandemics, and misaligned AI with probabilistic estimates.
- •Argues humanity stands at a uniquely dangerous inflection point where decisions made now will shape the entire future trajectory of civilization.
- •Introduces and defends longtermism: the view that positively influencing the long-run future is among the most important things we can do.
- •Provides historical context showing how existential risk management has been chronically neglected relative to its moral importance.
- •Proposes actionable strategies for individuals, institutions, and governments to reduce existential risk and move humanity toward safety.
Cited by 5 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| AI Structural Risk Cruxes | Crux | 66.0 |
| AI Acceleration Tradeoff Model | Analysis | 50.0 |
| Toby Ord | Person | 41.0 |
| AI-Induced Irreversibility | Risk | 64.0 |
| AI Value Lock-in | Risk | 64.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Apr 7, 20264 KB
The Precipice
Contact Us
Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
Form Block
This form needs a storage option. Double-click here to edit this form, and tell us where to save form submissions in the Storage tab.
Learn more
123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999
(123) 555-6789
email@address.com
You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.
The Precipice
Info
Email
Search
About
“A powerfully argued book that alerts us to what is perhaps the most important — and yet also most neglected — problem we will ever face”
— PETER SINGER
Buy the book
Humanity stands at a precipice.
Our species could survive for millions of generations — enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice; to reach new heights of flourishing. But this vast future is at risk. With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, gaining the power to destroy ourselves, without the wisdom to ensure we won’t. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it may soon be too late.
The Precipice explores the science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points toward longtermism — to the actions and strategies we can take today to safeguard humanity’s long-run future.
What People are Saying
“a book that seems made for the present moment … readers may find the sections that argue for why humanity deserves saving, and why we’re equipped to face the challenges, even more arresting than the array of potential cataclysms”
— NEW YORKER
“Splendid …The Precipice is a powerful book, written with a philosopher's eye … Ord's love for humanity and hope for its future is infectious”
— SPECTATOR
“Many people have recently found that they want to read books offering the grandest perspectives possible on human existence, such as Sapiens … Toby Ord's new book is a startling and rigorous contribution to this genre that deserves to be just as widely read”
— EVENING STANDARD
“meticulous in how it goes through and breaks down these threats and forces itself not to stop on easy answers, and to be really rigorous”
— NATE SILVER , founder of FiveThirtyEigh
... (truncated, 4 KB total)Resource ID:
3b9fccf15651dbbe | Stable ID: sid_IBebVBEh1X