Philosophies & Movements
Existential Risk Studies
The academic field that studies events which could end humanity or permanently wreck its prospects — engineered pandemics, nuclear war, runaway AI. It matters for reading AI claims because most published extinction probabilities come out of this field, and its questions were shaped by the movements that founded it rather than by measurement.
Origin
The term “existential risk” was defined by philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2002 paper “Existential Risks,” and institutions followed (Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, Cambridge’s Center for the Study of Existential Risk). The field’s own history was traced by SJ Beard and Émile P. Torres, who describe three waves: a transhumanist and techno-utopian first wave, a second built on longtermism and Effective Altruism, and a third formed where the field met disaster studies, environmental science and public policy. Both authors are participants in the debate, so read it as a history written from inside.