According to a new assessment of global risks, humanity could become extinct by 2100 as a result of the malicious use of artificial intelligence or nuclear conflict, UNN reports, citing The Guardian.
The publication notes that these factors top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years; the list also includes cuts in wealthy countries’ aid spending, the climate crisis, and child malnutrition.
Experts from The Lancet Commission on 21st-Century Global Threats to Health noted that all these threats are interconnected and therefore should be addressed comprehensively, while emphasizing that there are "realistic courses of action" to counter each of them.
"The decisions made by leaders today will determine the health and well-being of the next generation," said Professor Christopher Murray, co-chair of the commission and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
To compile this list, the commission modeled the number of years of healthy life that could be lost through illness, disability, or premature death as a result of each threat (based on current trends); this measure is known as DALYs (disability-adjusted life years).
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"The malicious use of artificial intelligence (including to create biological weapons) and nuclear conflict (with the threat of nuclear famine) pose a risk of human extinction over the next 75 years," the report says. The authors note that although the likelihood of such events remains low, they could lead to humanity’s destruction—either through the release of enough particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and cause famine (in the event of nuclear conflict), or through the use of biological weapons created with the help of artificial intelligence. An editorial in The Lancet published alongside the report cautions: "The scale of the harm if these threats materialized would result in an apocalypse for humanity."
Other risks that could collectively cause the loss of more than 1 billion years of healthy life (DALYs) and are therefore identified as "major catastrophic threats" include air pollution, antimicrobial resistance, child malnutrition, the climate crisis, as well as armed conflicts, reductions in international aid, excessive alcohol consumption, high blood pressure, income inequality, low levels of education, natural pandemics, obesity, mental health problems, smoking, and unhealthy aging.
To be included on this list, threats had to not only have the potential to cause substantial losses of healthy life years, but also have potential solutions. Ibrahim Abubakar, a member of the commission and professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London (UCL), said: "We are not coming from a position of, ‘Here, we want to scare you—humanity is facing this many threats.’ We are starting from the premise that if you are making policy decisions today—whether at the global multilateral level or nationally—these are potential threats that you may face, and this is the scale of change that you can realistically achieve through your actions."
According to the report, which modeled the best- and worst-case scenarios for each threat, measures to limit global warming to around 1.8°C (rather than allowing it to reach 4.4°C) could prevent the loss of 1.89 billion years of healthy life.
In high-income regions, the main threats were noncommunicable diseases, such as obesity and mental health problems, while in low-income regions, health losses were driven by factors such as low levels of education.
Many major donor countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have announced significant cuts in aid spending over the past year. The Commission found that a potential collapse of international health aid, or a sharp reduction in it, could result in the loss of up to 1.5 billion disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) by 2100; nearly 70% of these losses would occur in sub-Saharan African countries. This region is also the hardest hit by the problem of child malnutrition.
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The commission consisted of 35 experts, and the results of their work will be presented on Sunday at the World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany. Their assessment will be updated annually to review the 17 identified threats in light of new data and any new dangers that emerge.
The authors urged leaders to respond to risks before they escalate into crises, including by investing in technological innovation and strengthening health systems.
"We began this process three years ago, believing that there were three major threats: conflict, climate change and pandemics," Murray said. There are many more threats that should concern us, and governments genuinely need to allocate funding and personnel to tasks related to anticipating and preventing this broader range of threats, as well as preparing for them.