In January of 1995, Russia detected a nuclear missile headed its way.

1995 年 1 月，俄羅斯探測到一枚飛往該國的核導彈。

The alert went all the way to the president who was deciding whether to strike back when another system contradicted the initial warning.

當另一個系統與初始警報發生矛盾時，該警報已經一路傳到了總統耳中，而他也正在決定是否反擊。

What they'd thought was the first missile in a massive attack was actually a research rocket studying the northern lights.

他們認為是大規模攻擊中第一枚飛彈的導彈實際上一座是研究北極光的探測火箭。

This incident happened after the end of the Cold War, but was nevertheless one of the closest calls we've had to igniting a global nuclear war.

此一事件發生在冷戰結束之際，不過仍是人類最可能引發全球核武危機的事件之一。

With the invention of the atomic bomb, humanity gained the power to destroy itself for the first time in our history.

隨著原子彈的發明，人類也在史上首次去得可以自我毀滅的能力。

Since then, our existential risk⏤risk of either extinction or the unrecoverable collapse of human civilization⏤has steadily increased.

從那之後，人類滅絕或是無法轉圜的文明崩壞等存在危機穩定地增加了。

It's well within our power to reduce this risk, but in order to do so, we have to understand which of our activities pose existential threats now and which might in the future.

我們絕對有能力降低這個風險，但要做到這件事，我們必須了解有哪些人類活動在現在或是未來可能會對我們的存在造成威脅。

So far, our species has survived 2,000 centuries, each with some extinction risk from natural causes: asteroid impacts, super volcanoes, and the like.

到目前為止，人類這個物種已經存活了 2,000 個世紀，每個世紀都曾有過對存在造成威脅的天然災害，包括隕石撞擊、超級火山等。

Assessing existential risk is an inherently uncertain business because, usually, when we try to figure out how likely something is, we check how often it's happened before.

評估存在風險本質上是具不確定性的任務，因為當我們要評估某件事的可能性時，通常會檢視過往發生的頻率。

But the complete destruction of humanity has never happened before.

但全人類的毀滅事件是從未發生過的。

While there's no perfect method to determine our risk from natural threats, experts estimate it's about 1 in 10,000 per century.

雖然沒有一個判定自然災害對人類造成風險量的完美方法，專家估算了每世紀千分之一次的機率。

Nuclear weapons were our first addition to that baseline.

核武器是我們添加到那個基準的第一個物件。

While there are many risks associated with nuclear weapons, the existential risk comes from the possibility of a global nuclear war that leads to a nuclear winter,

雖然有很多跟核武相關聯的風險，存在風險源自於會引發核冬天的全球核戰的可能性。

where soot from burning cities blocks out the sun for years, causing the crops that humanity depends on to fail.

在核冬天的狀況下，燃燒城市的灰燼會接連數年地遮蔽陽光，導致人類所仰賴的作物歉收。

We haven't had a nuclear war yet, but our track record is too short to tell if they're inherently unlikely or we've simply been lucky.

雖然核戰尚未發生過，但人類過往紀錄少到無法判定它們究竟是本質上不太可能發生，或是我們只不過是走運罷了。

We also can't say for sure whether a global nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter so severe it would pose an existential threat to humanity.

我們也不能肯定地判定全球核戰是否會引起一場嚴重到足以對全人類存亡造成威脅的核冬天。

The next major addition to our existential risk was climate change.

另一個新增到存在威脅之列的就是氣候變遷。

Like nuclear war, climate change could result in a lot of terrible scenarios that we should be working hard to avoid, but that would stop short of causing extinction or unrecoverable collapse.

跟核戰一樣，氣候變遷也可能導致許多可怕的情況，我們應該努力避免這些可能差點引發滅絕或無轉圜餘地崩壞的狀況。

We expect a few degrees Celsius of warming, but can't yet completely rule out 6 or even 10 degrees, which would cause a calamity of possibly unprecedented proportions.

我們可以預期氣溫上升攝氏幾度，但沒辦法全面排除 6 度甚或 10 度，這都會引起規模可能前所未見的災難。

Even in this worst-case scenario, it's not clear whether warming would pose a direct existential risk, but the disruption it would cause would likely make us more vulnerable to other existential risks.

即便是在這種最糟的情境下，暖化是否會有直接的存在風險仍不明確，但它可能引發的動盪很可能讓我們更容易被其它存在風險威脅。

The greatest risks may come from technologies that are still emerging.

最大的風險可能來自於仍逐漸浮現的新興科技。

Take engineered pandemics.

以大規模的流行病為例。

The biggest catastrophes in human history have been from pandemics.

人類史上最大的災難都是源自於流行病。

And biotechnology is enabling us to modify and create germs that could be much more deadly than naturally occurring ones.

而生化科技讓我們得以改造或製造細菌，讓牠們的致死率較自然生成細菌更高。

Such germs could cause pandemics through biowarfare and research accidents.

這些細菌可能透過生物戰以及研究意外引起流行病。

Decreased costs of genome sequencing and modification, along with increased availability of potentially dangerous information like the published genomes of deadly viruses,

成本降低的基因組定序與改造作業，搭配致死病毒已發布基因排序等潛帶危險的資訊更容易被取得，

also increase the number of people and groups who could potentially create such pathogens.

這也增加了可能製造這些病原體的人數以及組織數。

Another concern is unaligned AI.

另一個隱憂是為對齊的人工智慧。

Most AI researchers think this will be the century where we develop artificial intelligence that surpasses human abilities across the board.

多數人工智慧研究人員都覺得人類會在這個世紀發展出整體超越人類能力的人工智慧。

If we cede this advantage, we place our future in the hands of the systems we create.

如果我們放棄這項優勢，我們就把未來交到我們所創建的系統手中。

Even if created solely with humanity's best interests in mind, super-intelligent AI could pose an existential risk if it isn't perfectly aligned with human values,

即便是為了人類的最大福祉而創建的，超級人工智慧也可能在未完全與人類價值對齊的狀況下引起存在危機。

a task scientists are finding extremely difficult.

而要對齊的這個任務對科學家來說是難上加難。

Based on what we know at this point, some experts estimate the anthropogenic existential risk is more than 100 times higher than the background rate of natural risk.

根據我們目前所知狀況，有些專家估計人為存在風險比自然風險背景率高出百倍以上。

But these odds depend heavily on human choices because most of the risk is from human action, and it's within human control.

但這些機率大大地取決於人類的抉擇，因為很多的風險都源自人類的行為，所以是人類可控的。

If we treat safeguarding humanity's future as the defining issue of our time, we can reduce this risk.

如果我們把保衛人類未來視為我們這個世代最重要的議題，我們就可以減少這個風險。

Whether humanity fulfills its potential⏤or not⏤is in our hands.

無論人是否能夠實現其潛能都操之我們自己的雙手。

So, just how likely are each of these risks?

那麼這些風險各自的可能性有多高呢？

To learn more about how we can assess existential risk, including detailed estimate for every risk we've mentioned, we highly recommend "The Precipice" by Toby Ord.

要多了解我們可以如何評估存在風險以及我們提及每項風險的詳細估算，我們強力推薦托比·奧德撰寫的《懸崖》一書。