Let me argue on a technicality first: None of these are extinction level events. If global warming disrupts 99% of all crop production, the remaining 1% is still plenty enough to sustain a stable, if miserable, population. In fact you just need about 5k people for a stable gene pool[1]. Of the classical threats, only bioweapons got a shot at extinction, but even that is hard, given the (few) remaining truly secluded settlements.

But most probably care less about human survival, and more about survival of civilization.

In this regard the strongest argument for pushing AI safety is that it is cost-effective. The climate crisis has near 100% likelihood of doing incredible harm to humans, the economy and our ecosystem. Solving the issues behind are also incredible complicated and are a multi decade coordination effort of restructuring the way most of our infrastructure and production works. The AI apocalypse might have a small likelihood of occurring, but could dwarf any issue we have encountered so far. All we have to do to significantly reduce the danger is to negotiate the equivalent of a nuclear weapons control treaty which would reduce the bottom line of … what? Ten significant companies world wide?

Its akin to discovering you are seriously ill and have a 30% chance of dying and the treatment costs 10k bucks vs. having a 1% chance of dying and the treatment costs a cent. In both cases you should pay obviously pay for the treatment (given western levels of wealth).

To be clear, above I'm presenting the argument I find most persuasive for AI control / AI slowdown. Personally, I'm beginning to fear of much higher likelihoods for catastrophic AI, given how incredible irresponsible major players like OpenAI have turned out to be. If you can't imagine how this might come to be, read https://ai-2027.com/ . It's a concrete story of how this could play out, and sometimes stories are more convincing than abstract arguments. Don't let yourself be hung up on the stated dates, though, the moral is identical if you stretch the timeline.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIvFpcGkqc

You are confusing humanity and "humanity". Humanity-species is indeed rather hard to exterminate. Now if we are talking about actual individual humans, then 95% death rate is quite literally The Extinction.

This reminds me how people are misunderstanding and incorrectly quoting George Carlin sketch. Sure, the "Earth" will be fine. As in - the ball of rock will be fine. But we are not thinking about rocks when saying "Earth is in danger".

I'm pretty sure there is a formal name for this kind of semantic and pedantic substitution.

This is a fair distinction: extinction vs collapse of civilization. I was using "extinction" too broadly by including the disintegration of the systems that make human survival (as we know it today) possible.

That said, I can't completely hold onto the belief that extinction is completely off the table. That feels too much like hubris, and the step from collapse to extinction doesn't feel as if it costs much. Though it does make my arguments weaker, I am more interested in protecting civilization as it's the most recognizable form of humanity to me.

In either case, the cost-effective safety argument is compelling. Whether to save civilization or humanity, the wealth incentive is powerful enough to threaten life as we know it.

I still have to read a compelling argument on how AI will "extinct" humanity.

> If global warming disrupts 99% of all crop production, the remaining 1% is still plenty enough to sustain a stable, if miserable, population.

That is extinctesque enough for me. An AI extinction would probably be similiar.

Calling it a "technicality" assumes the very thing under debate: that AI is an extinction-level risk. That isn't established fact. It's a highly uncertain prediction about the future.

Personally, I'm far more concerned about climate change, where the harms are already happening and the evidence is much stronger.