An Explanation of Existential Risks and How Law Could Save the World
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Advisor
Thomas Loikith
Access Type
Event
Start Date
26-4-2024 2:15 PM
End Date
26-4-2024 3:15 PM
Description
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, humanity has possessed the unprecedented capability of destroying life on Earth as we know it. However, as technology has advanced rapidly, the list of human inventions that could cause mass extinctions has grown drastically beyond nuclear warfare. Developments in physics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology all create potential existential risks to humanity’s survival. While the probability of such catastrophes is quite low, safeguards and regulations must be in place to ensure that emergent technologies are developed safely. This paper examines how the legal system is equipped to mitigate such existential risks and describes the potential consequences of unregulated technological advancement. This is a complex problem requiring interdisciplinary research and analysis based on qualitative textual analysis of legal journals, international treaties, and scholarly journals to determine what kind of risks emergent technologies pose, what the law is currently capable of towards preventing existential risks, and how the law should evolve to further supply the means of humanity’s survival. Though there is still research to be conducted, my tentative conclusions are that the law needs much more improvement to manage existential risks as it requires global cooperation to protect global survival. Therefore, entities like the United Nations must work to produce a comprehensive agreement on how risk assessment hearings for developing technologies should be conducted between judges, lawyers, and scientists alike.
An Explanation of Existential Risks and How Law Could Save the World
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, humanity has possessed the unprecedented capability of destroying life on Earth as we know it. However, as technology has advanced rapidly, the list of human inventions that could cause mass extinctions has grown drastically beyond nuclear warfare. Developments in physics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology all create potential existential risks to humanity’s survival. While the probability of such catastrophes is quite low, safeguards and regulations must be in place to ensure that emergent technologies are developed safely. This paper examines how the legal system is equipped to mitigate such existential risks and describes the potential consequences of unregulated technological advancement. This is a complex problem requiring interdisciplinary research and analysis based on qualitative textual analysis of legal journals, international treaties, and scholarly journals to determine what kind of risks emergent technologies pose, what the law is currently capable of towards preventing existential risks, and how the law should evolve to further supply the means of humanity’s survival. Though there is still research to be conducted, my tentative conclusions are that the law needs much more improvement to manage existential risks as it requires global cooperation to protect global survival. Therefore, entities like the United Nations must work to produce a comprehensive agreement on how risk assessment hearings for developing technologies should be conducted between judges, lawyers, and scientists alike.