Should We Focus on Preventing S-Risks or X-Risks?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume IX, p. 41 of the PDF edition · English translation

5.1. S-risks and x-risks

As we saw in Chapter 1, risks of future suffering, or s-risks, are the risks that events will occur in the future resulting in suffering on a gigantic scale, exceeding all the suffering that has existed on Earth so far⁴⁹. Examples include the potential of future technology to vastly increase animal exploitation and the harms animals suffer as a result of natural processes⁵⁰, and to create new kinds of sentient beings, for example, in digital media⁵¹.

Existential risks, in turn, also known as x-risks, are the risks of the annihilation of humanity (or, at least, of a collapse of civilization). Examples include global warming, nuclear weapons, pandemics, and so on.

To have the best impact on history from now on, should we focus on trying to prevent s-risks or x-risks? That is what we will discuss in this chapter.

5.2. Discussing a speciesist attempt to defend the focus on x-risks

One way to defend the focus on x-risks is to argue that humans matter much more. However, there are two problems with this argument.

The first is that there seems to be no way to justify giving greater weight to humans. From an unbiased point of view, equal amounts of harm and benefit matter equally, regardless of factors that depend on luck, such as the species to which someone belongs.

The second problem is that, even if much less weight were given to

nonhuman sentient beings, the number of beings potentially affected by s-risks is so astronomically greater that we would still have to conclude in favor of investing more resources in preventing s-risks than x-risks.

5.3. The claim that humanity is essential for preventing suffering

It is sometimes argued that we should prioritize preventing x-risks not because humans matter more, but because doing so would be necessary to prevent s-risks. In the absence of agents with technology at their disposal, there will be no one to reduce the suffering in the world. On this basis, it could be said that, as long as there are x-risks, we should not worry about s-risks. In short, what this argument holds is that the most important thing is to prevent s-risks, but that, to do so, we need to focus on preventing x-risks and forget about s-risks for the time being.

The strength of this argument depends on how positive or negative humanity's impact on history will be from now on. In the best scenario, humanity would continue to exist and try to prevent suffering. But another possibility is that it continues to exist and does not care about reducing the suffering that would already exist naturally or, worse still, produces much more suffering than would already exist naturally. Let us compare three possible scenarios:

(1) Humanity continues and there is less suffering than if it went extinct. (2) Humanity goes extinct. (3) Humanity continues and there is more suffering than if it went extinct.

It seems that 1 is the best of the three scenarios, and that 3 is worse than 2. The idea underlying the focus on preventing s-risks is that it is more important to avoid the worst scenario of all (in this case, scenario 3). Moreover, a strategy that is essential for avoiding the worst scenario (scenario 3) is also essential for trying to achieve the best scenario (scenario 1): spreading, as efficiently as possible, consideration for all sentient beings. This is crucial to ensure that, if humanity continues to exist, it will try to prevent suffering rather than increase it.

5.4. The claim that we will obtain more resources if we prioritize humans

It is sometimes argued that, since people are speciesist, organizations whose goal is to benefit all sentient beings would gain more supporters and resources if they focused on human causes instead of on concern for all sentient beings. In short, what this argument means is that our goal should be to prevent harm to all sentient beings but that, curiously, the most efficient way to achieve this goal is to focus on humans.

A central problem with this argument is that it seems to overlook the fact that one of the main reasons why an astronomical amount of suffering is taking place, and why there is a great risk that it will be vastly multiplied in the future, is precisely the predominance of an anthropocentric view.

This is a very strong reason to prioritize advocating moral consideration for all sentient beings, and as soon as possible, since the non-acceptance of this idea is one of the main obstacles to the goal of preventing massive suffering in the world, both present and future suffering. For example, imagine that consideration for all sentient beings had begun to spread on a large scale two thousand years ago. There would probably be much less suffering than there is today.

If we advocate prioritizing humans, besides failing to spread consideration for all sentient beings, this will probably have the effect of reinforcing speciesism (or, at least, by not questioning it, of delaying changes in speciesist attitudes) and of being an obstacle to preventing the suffering that would occur from now on.

In short, it seems that the sooner (and the more widely) consideration for sentient beings is spread, the better the history of the world from now on is likely to be. One of the advantages of this strategy is that, if carried out carefully so as not to provoke rejection, it tends to influence the future positively, regardless of what might happen.

5.5. Reasons to focus more on s-risks

Some reasons to focus more on preventing s-risks than x-risks are:

(1) Severity. Risks of future suffering have the potential to have an astronomically greater impact than existential risks, both in terms of severity (since they represent the possibility of extreme suffering throughout the entire lives of future sentient beings) and in terms of scope (since they would affect all sentient beings in the universe from now until the end of time).

(2) Expected impact. The probability of s-risks is not lower than that of x-risks.

(3) Tractability. There is also much that could be done to try to minimize s-risks.

(4) Degree of neglect: There are already many more people trying to prevent x-risks than s-risks.

Therefore, all the priority criteria point toward giving great importance to risks of future suffering.

However, it is also important to remember that the focus on s-risks or x-risks may be a matter of degree. That is, one goal does not necessarily exclude the other. Thus, believing that preventing x-risks is more important does not justify thinking that preventing s-risks is not very important. Likewise, if someone prioritizes s-risks, this does not mean they think preventing x-risks is not very important, and so on.