Volume XII · The Essentials of Animal Ethics · chapter 12
Identifying Risk Factors for S-Risks
Before you read study layer, not part of the original text
As in medicine, we can identify risk factors for s-risks without predicting the future in detail: disregard for nonhuman and nonbiological sentient beings, advanced technology, aversion to technology, lacking or ineffective efforts, polarization, and malevolent agents.
Eating badly is not an illness, but it raises the chance of getting sick. Some things in the world also raise the chance of great suffering in the future, and we can try to reduce them.
Risk factors are like a wet road: they do not cause the accident, but they make it much more likely.
- P1 It is hard to predict the long-term consequences of each decision.
- P2 But risk factors increase the likelihood or severity of s-risks, even without determining them.
- P3 Among them: disregard for sentient beings, technological progress outpacing moral progress, polarization, and malevolent agents with power.
- C So reducing these factors is a viable way to prevent future suffering.
The chapter’s central argument in logical form. If the premises are true, the conclusion follows. To disagree, you have to show which premise is false.
They say “You cannot prepare for a future you do not know.”
Answer In health care we do this all the time: we avoid risk factors without knowing how each person's life will go.
More objections and answers in Debunking objections.
Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume XII, p. 45 of the PDF edition · English translation
One of the objections to concern with is the difficulty of estimating the long-term consequences of our decisions. One answer to this objection is to point to the possibility of investigating , which are not themselves s-risks but greatly increase their likelihood or severity57. The concept of a risk factor is already widely used in medicine. For example, eating poorly and not exercising are not, in themselves, diseases, but they greatly increase the probability of various diseases, even if they do not necessarily entail them. To know that it is good to avoid these risk factors, it is not necessary to know what each individual's health trajectory will be. Similarly, even if it is hard to estimate what the long-term future will be like, we can try to identify risk factors for s-risks and the actions that would help avoid them.
Some risk factors for s-risks
- Disregard for nonhuman beings.
- Disregard for nonbiological sentient beings.
- Demand for products and services whose production harms sentient beings.
- Human expansion and increased technological power.
- Technological progress is much faster than moral progress.
Below are other examples and an explanation of why they are risk factors:
| Factor | Why it is a risk factor |
|---|---|
| Advanced technology (IX, ch. 8.2.) | Many s-risks are possible only because of new technologies. Examples: (1) Creating digital sentient beings could result in enormous amounts of suffering because of disregard for nonbiological sentient beings. (2) Space colonization could vastly multiply the population of sentient beings, who would be subject to the decisions of agents and to natural processes. There are between 100 and 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Without space colonization, suffering would remain limited to that on Earth (which is already enormous, but tiny compared to what could arise). |
| Aversion to technology (IX, ch. 8.3). | Technology also offers opportunities to reduce suffering. If technological progress were halted, this would prevent the emergence of s-risks caused by humans, but not natural s-risks (and it would also mean there was no technology to prevent these other s-risks). |
| Lack of efforts to reduce s-risks (IX, ch. 8.5). | We can prevent s-risks only if enough people care about it. Perhaps an enormous number of people is not necessary. Even if this number is not very large, these people can seek compromises with people who have other focuses (but who are not opposed to preventing s-risks), and try to get people who have more resources, power, or influence to want to prevent s-risks. |
| Ineffective efforts to reduce s-risks. (IX, ch. 8.6). | Wanting to reduce s-risks is not enough. The efforts need to be well planned. Some risks related to these possibilities are: (1) If the cause of reducing s-risks becomes associated with highly controversial ideas, this may generate strong rejection. (2) It is possible that the relevant decision-makers want to prevent s-risks, but political institutions are ineffective or there are cooperation problems. (3) Decision-makers may fail to notice certain s-risks in their early stages and, by the time they do, it may already be too late. |
| Polarization, conflict, and hostility (IX, ch. 8.7 and 11). | Large-scale polarization leaves little room for reflection (on s-risks or anything else) and for mutual compromise. It also has the potential to result in conflicts and even wars, which increases the chances of agential s-risks. |
| Lack of security against malevolent agents (IX, ch. 8.8). | Malevolent individuals pose serious risks when they reach positions of power, which is not uncommon, since they have a strong desire for power and their personality gives them advantages in this pursuit. These risks increase if such agents have access to advanced technology. There are possible future scenarios in which ways of containing these agents (such as laws and moral norms) could be ineffective or insufficient (for example, in a future with powerful autonomous AIs and/or with space colonization). |
As in the medical context, these catastrophes are more likely to occur if several risk factors coincide. Likewise, the chances of preventing them increase if several forms of prevention coincide. We will discuss the forms of prevention below.
Practice
Study layer. The answers are based on the chapter’s text.
Why is polarization a risk factor?
Which of these is listed as a risk factor?
Food for thought
Which of these risk factors could you help reduce in your everyday life?
Sources cited in this text 1
The full list for the volume is in the Volume XII references.
- BAUMANN, T. Avoiding the worst final: how to prevent a moral cathastrophe. Center for Reducing Suffering, 2022.
Go deeper on each point
The chapters the author points to in the tables above.
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