Risk · futures
Existential risk
Definition
An existential risk, in the formulation of philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2002 paper "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards", is one that threatens the premature extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or the permanent and drastic destruction of its potential for desirable future development. The category spans natural hazards (supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts) and anthropogenic hazards (engineered pandemics, unaligned artificial intelligence, severe climate change, nuclear war). Research on existential risk is institutionalised at centres such as Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute (founded 2005) and Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
References
Bostrom 2002 definition, Future of Humanity Institute (2005), Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
Overview
What it means
Existential risks are distinguished not only by scale but by irreversibility: their harm cannot be recovered from, which under standard decision frameworks gives their reduction very high priority even at low probabilities. In sustainability discourse the concept links long-horizon risk governance to intergenerational ethics — the people most affected by today's choices do not yet exist.
How it is used
Used in global-risk assessments, long-term policy and philanthropy prioritisation, AI-safety and biosecurity governance, and scenario work on civilisational resilience.
Why it matters
The framework disciplines sustainability debates about worst-case climate, technological and ecological trajectories, and provides the analytical bridge between planetary stewardship and long-term governance.