人类灭绝风险让人更急功近利，反而减少应对动力。
The Paradox of Doom: Acknowledging Extinction Risk Reduces the Incentive to Prevent It
- 区分人类灭绝与个人死亡风险，分析代际利他程度影响决策。
- 灭绝风险直接提高贴现率，使长期投资意愿下降。
- 解释为何人类对气候、疫情、AI等重大危机总投入不足。
我们研究了灭绝风险作为导致短视行为的根源。框架区分了人类灭绝风险与个体死亡风险，并考虑了不同代际利他程度的影响。同时引入进化论中的“自私基因”视角。结果表明，人类灭绝风险是贴现率不可或缺的组成部分；而个体死亡风险可通过人类繁衍部分或完全对冲。总体上，在面临灭绝威胁时，人们反而变得更短视而非更长远。因此，灭绝威胁越严重，越缺乏投资于规避该风险的动力。该框架有助于解释人类为何持续低估并低投入于缓解各类灾难性风险，包括气候变化减缓、疫情预防，以及新兴的变革性人工智能风险。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We investigate the salience of extinction risk as a source of impatience. Our framework distinguishes between human extinction risk and individual mortality risk while allowing for various degrees of intergenerational altruism. Additionally, we consider the evolutionarily motivated "selfish gene" perspective. We find that the risk of human extinction is an indispensable component of the discount rate, whereas individual mortality risk can be hedged against - partially or fully, depending on the setup - through human reproduction. Overall, we show that in the face of extinction risk, people become more impatient rather than more farsighted. Thus, the greater the threat of extinction, the less incentive there is to invest in avoiding it. Our framework can help explain why humanity consistently underinvests in mitigation of catastrophic risks, ranging from climate change mitigation, via pandemic prevention, to addressing the emerging risks of transformative artificial intelligence.
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