“There's heaps of futures open to humanity. Some of these futures would be constrained to earth, some might involve other planets, star systems or galaxies.”

Toby Ord is a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University. His work focuses on the big picture questions facing humanity. What are the most important issues of our time? How can we best address them? His current research is on the long term future of humanity, and the risks which threaten to destroy our entire potential. 

His book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and The Future of Humanity, explores these topics and concludes that safeguarding our future is among the most pressing and neglected issues we face. Toby also co-wrote the paper that introduced the term “Existential Hope”. 

Music: 

I Knew a Guy by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Session Summary: Toby Ord, Allison Duettmann – Existential Risk and Existential Hope - Foresight Institute

The Foresight Institute is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1987 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support.

Allison Duettmann is the president and CEO of Foresight Institute. She directs the Intelligent Cooperation, Molecular Machines, Biotech & Health Extension, Neurotech, and Space Programs, Fellowships, Prizes, and Tech Trees, and shares this work with the public. She founded Existentialhope.com, co-edited Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy, co-authored Gaming the Future, and co-initiated The Longevity Prize. 

Apply to Foresight’s virtual salons and in person workshops here!

We are entirely funded by your donations. If you enjoy what we do please consider donating through our donation page.

Visit our website for more content, or join us here:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Every word ever spoken on this podcast is now AI-searchable using Fathom.fm, a search engine for podcasts. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.