Lancet Commission names AI, nuclear war as extinction risks

A global commission convened by The Lancet has identified 17 "interconnected catastrophic threats" to human health through 2100. It singled out nuclear conflict and the malicious use of artificial intelligence as the two with potential to drive humanity to extinction. The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health looked at 204 countries and territories. It estimated how many years of healthy life each threat could cost by the end of the century.cnn+2

Its message is that leaders still have time to act. "The striking finding is not only the scale of these threats, but that humanity still has the agency to act," said co-chair Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.cnn

Obesity carries the largest avoidable burden

The commission used data from the Global Burden of Disease study. It found that obesity could account for 23.1 billion years of healthy life lost by 2100, and that policies to reduce obesity risk could avoid that loss. Low educational attainment, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, could cost 16.1 billion healthy years, and income inequality 13.8 billion. Limiting warming to about 1.8°C rather than 4.4°C could avert 1.89 billion lost healthy years, according to the report. The other threats on the list include pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, poor mental health, high blood pressure, smoking, childhood malnutrition and unhealthy ageing.newsghana+2

Reducing the risk of malicious AI could prevent about 10.4 billion lost healthy years, and preventing nuclear conflict could avert about 133 million deaths. Murray warned that because these events have no historical precedent, "these estimates carry much greater uncertainty than those for other threats". The commission looked at three ways AI could cause harm: helping people build biological weapons, system failures such as autonomous weapons, and loss of human control over advanced systems. Forecasters it consulted showed "wide divergence" in how likely they thought an AI catastrophe was.elnuevodiario+2

A three-part agenda

The commission's plan has three parts: build readiness, back breakthroughs and keep tracking threats. Murray said governments should first "create and fund threat-ready health systems with dedicated capacity for foresight, prevention, preparedness and protection". He said the heaviest burden is likely to fall on resource-limited and marginalized communities, and that "global health will be profoundly affected by what happens to economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the Sahel".iflscience+1

An accompanying editorial said the goal is not to produce a fixed ranking but to "catalyse international, regional, and national actions". Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton said: "The jeopardies that face us are multiple. Our solutions need to match that reality".cnn+1

The findings were released ahead of the World Health Summit in Berlin, which opens Sunday. Murray will lead a virtual media workshop on the findings on Oct. 12.newsghana+1

"Recent global events show us just how quickly stability can give way to crisis, and how costly it is to respond only after disaster strikes," said co-chair Dr. Natalia Kanem, former head of the UN Population Fund. "Yet the future is not inevitable".cnn