How civilization could destroy itself -- and 4 ways we could prevent it

Humanity is on its way to creating a "black ball": a technological breakthrough that could destroy us all, says philosopher Nick Bostrom. In this incisive, surprisingly light-hearted conversation with Head of TED Chris Anderson, Bostrom outlines the vulnerabilities we could face if (or when) our inventions spiral beyond our control -- and explores how we can prevent our future demise.

Chris Anderson: Nick Bostrom.

So, you have already given us
so many crazy ideas out there.

I think a couple of decades ago,

you made the case that we might
all be living in a simulation,

or perhaps probably were.

More recently,

you've painted the most vivid examples
of how artificial general intelligence

could go horribly wrong.

And now this year,

you're about to publish

a paper that presents something called
the vulnerable world hypothesis.

And our job this evening is to
give the illustrated guide to that.

So let's do that.

What is that hypothesis?

Nick Bostrom: It's trying to think about

a sort of structural feature
of the current human condition.

You like the urn metaphor,

so I'm going to use that to explain it.

So picture a big urn filled with balls

representing ideas, methods,
possible technologies.

You can think of the history
of human creativity

as the process of reaching into this urn
and pulling out one ball after another,

and the net effect so far
has been hugely beneficial, right?

We've extracted a great many white balls,

some various shades of gray,
mixed blessings.

We haven't so far
pulled out the black ball --

a technology that invariably destroys
the civilization that discovers it.

So the paper tries to think
about what could such a black ball be.

CA: So you define that ball

as one that would inevitably
bring about civilizational destruction.

NB: Unless we exit what I call
the semi-anarchic default condition.

But sort of, by default.

CA: So, you make the case compelling

by showing some sort of counterexamples

where you believe that so far
we've actually got lucky,

that we might have pulled out
that death ball

without even knowing it.

So there's this quote, what's this quote?

NB: Well, I guess
it's just meant to illustrate

the difficulty of foreseeing

what basic discoveries will lead to.

We just don't have that capability.

Because we have become quite good
at pulling out balls,

but we don't really have the ability
to put the ball back into the urn, right.

We can invent, but we can't un-invent.

So our strategy, such as it is,

is to hope that there is
no black ball in the urn.

CA: So once it's out, it's out,
and you can't put it back in,

and you think we've been lucky.

So talk through a couple
of these examples.

You talk about different
types of vulnerability.

NB: So the easiest type to understand

is a technology
that just makes it very easy

to cause massive amounts of destruction.

Synthetic biology might be a fecund
source of that kind of black ball,

but many other possible things we could --

think of geoengineering,
really great, right?

We could combat global warming,

but you don't want it
to get too easy either,

you don't want any random person
and his grandmother

to have the ability to radically
alter the earth's climate.

Or maybe lethal autonomous drones,

massed-produced, mosquito-sized
killer bot swarms.

Nanotechnology,
artificial general intelligence.

CA: You argue in the paper

that it's a matter of luck
that when we discovered

that nuclear power could create a bomb,

it might have been the case

that you could have created a bomb

with much easier resources,
accessible to anyone.

NB: Yeah, so think back to the 1930s

where for the first time we make
some breakthroughs in nuclear physics,

some genius figures out that it's possible
to create a nuclear chain reaction

and then realizes
that this could lead to the bomb.

And we do some more work,

it turns out that what you require
to make a nuclear bomb

is highly enriched uranium or plutonium,

which are very difficult materials to get.

You need ultracentrifuges,

you need reactors, like,
massive amounts of energy.

But suppose it had turned out instead

there had been an easy way
to unlock the energy of the atom.

That maybe by baking sand
in the microwave oven

or something like that

you could have created
a nuclear detonation.

So we know that that's
physically impossible.

But before you did the relevant physics

how could you have known
how it would turn out?

CA: Although, couldn't you argue

that for life to evolve on Earth

that implied sort of stable environment,

that if it was possible to create
massive nuclear reactions relatively easy,

the Earth would never have been stable,

that we wouldn't be here at all.

NB: Yeah, unless there were something
that is easy to do on purpose

but that wouldn't happen by random chance.

So, like things we can easily do,

we can stack 10 blocks
on top of one another,

but in nature, you're not going to find,
like, a stack of 10 blocks.

CA: OK, so this is probably the one

that many of us worry about most,

and yes, synthetic biology
is perhaps the quickest route

that we can foresee
in our near future to get us here.

NB: Yeah, and so think
about what that would have meant

if, say, anybody by working
in their kitchen for an afternoon

could destroy a city.

It's hard to see how
modern civilization as we know it

could have survived that.

Because in any population
of a million people,

there will always be some
who would, for whatever reason,

choose to use that destructive power.

So if that apocalyptic residual

would choose to destroy a city, or worse,

then cities would get destroyed.

CA: So here's another type
of vulnerability.

Talk about this.

NB: Yeah, so in addition to these
kind of obvious types of black balls

that would just make it possible
to blow up a lot of things,

other types would act
by creating bad incentives

for humans to do things that are harmful.

So, the Type-2a, we might call it that,

is to think about some technology
that incentivizes great powers

to use their massive amounts of force
to create destruction.

So, nuclear weapons were actually
very close to this, right?

What we did, we spent
over 10 trillion dollars

to build 70,000 nuclear warheads

and put them on hair-trigger alert.

And there were several times
during the Cold War

we almost blew each other up.

It's not because a lot of people felt
this would be a great idea,

let's all spend 10 trillion dollars
to blow ourselves up,

but the incentives were such
that we were finding ourselves --

this could have been worse.

Imagine if there had been
a safe first strike.

Then it might have been very tricky,

in a crisis situation,

to refrain from launching
all their nuclear missiles.

If nothing else, because you would fear
that the other side might do it.

CA: Right, mutual assured destruction

kept the Cold War relatively stable,

without that, we might not be here now.

NB: It could have been
more unstable than it was.

And there could be
other properties of technology.

It could have been harder
to have arms treaties,

if instead of nuclear weapons

there had been some smaller thing
or something less distinctive.

CA: And as well as bad incentives
for powerful actors,

you also worry about bad incentives
for all of us, in Type-2b here.

NB: Yeah, so, here we might
take the case of global warming.

There are a lot of little conveniences

that cause each one of us to do things

that individually
have no significant effect, right?

But if billions of people do it,

cumulatively, it has a damaging effect.

Now, global warming
could have been a lot worse than it is.

So we have the climate
sensitivity parameter, right.

It's a parameter that says
how much warmer does it get

if you emit a certain amount
of greenhouse gases.

But, suppose that it had been the case

that with the amount
of greenhouse gases we emitted,

instead of the temperature rising by, say,

between three and 4.5 degrees by 2100,

suppose it had been
15 degrees or 20 degrees.

Like, then we might have been
in a very bad situation.

Or suppose that renewable energy
had just been a lot harder to do.

Or that there had been
more fossil fuels in the ground.

CA: Couldn't you argue
that if in that case of --

if what we are doing today

had resulted in 10 degrees difference
in the time period that we could see,

actually humanity would have got
off its ass and done something about it.

We're stupid, but we're not
maybe that stupid.

Or maybe we are.

NB: I wouldn't bet on it.

(Laughter)

You could imagine other features.

So, right now, it's a little bit difficult
to switch to renewables and stuff, right,

but it can be done.

But it might just have been,
with slightly different physics,

it could have been much more expensive
to do these things.

CA: And what's your view, Nick?

Do you think, putting
these possibilities together,

that this earth, humanity that we are,

we count as a vulnerable world?

That there is a death ball in our future?

NB: It's hard to say.

I mean, I think there might
well be various black balls in the urn,

that's what it looks like.

There might also be some golden balls

that would help us
protect against black balls.

And I don't know which order
they will come out.

CA: I mean, one possible
philosophical critique of this idea

is that it implies a view
that the future is essentially settled.

That there either
is that ball there or it's not.

And in a way,

that's not a view of the future
that I want to believe.

I want to believe
that the future is undetermined,

that our decisions today will determine

what kind of balls
we pull out of that urn.

NB: I mean, if we just keep inventing,

like, eventually we will
pull out all the balls.

I mean, I think there's a kind
of weak form of technological determinism

that is quite plausible,

like, you're unlikely
to encounter a society

that uses flint axes and jet planes.

But you can almost think
of a technology as a set of affordances.

So technology is the thing
that enables us to do various things

and achieve various effects in the world.

How we'd then use that,
of course depends on human choice.

But if we think about these
three types of vulnerability,

they make quite weak assumptions
about how we would choose to use them.

So a Type-1 vulnerability, again,
this massive, destructive power,

it's a fairly weak assumption

to think that in a population
of millions of people

there would be some that would choose
to use it destructively.

CA: For me, the most single
disturbing argument

is that we actually might have
some kind of view into the urn

that makes it actually
very likely that we're doomed.

Namely, if you believe
in accelerating power,

that technology inherently accelerates,

that we build the tools
that make us more powerful,

then at some point you get to a stage

where a single individual
can take us all down,

and then it looks like we're screwed.

Isn't that argument quite alarming?

NB: Ah, yeah.

(Laughter)

I think --

Yeah, we get more and more power,

and [it's] easier and easier
to use those powers,

but we can also invent technologies
that kind of help us control

how people use those powers.

CA: So let's talk about that,
let's talk about the response.

Suppose that thinking
about all the possibilities

that are out there now --

it's not just synbio,
it's things like cyberwarfare,

artificial intelligence, etc., etc. --

that there might be
serious doom in our future.

What are the possible responses?

And you've talked about
four possible responses as well.

NB: Restricting technological development
doesn't seem promising,

if we are talking about a general halt
to technological progress.

I think neither feasible,

nor would it be desirable
even if we could do it.

I think there might be very limited areas

where maybe you would want
slower technological progress.

You don't, I think, want
faster progress in bioweapons,

or in, say, isotope separation,

that would make it easier to create nukes.

CA: I mean, I used to be
fully on board with that.

But I would like to actually
push back on that for a minute.

Just because, first of all,

if you look at the history
of the last couple of decades,

you know, it's always been
push forward at full speed,

it's OK, that's our only choice.

But if you look at globalization
and the rapid acceleration of that,

if you look at the strategy of
"move fast and break things"

and what happened with that,

and then you look at the potential
for synthetic biology,

I don't know that we should
move forward rapidly

or without any kind of restriction

to a world where you could have
a DNA printer in every home

and high school lab.

There are some restrictions, right?

NB: Possibly, there is
the first part, the not feasible.

If you think it would be
desirable to stop it,

there's the problem of feasibility.

So it doesn't really help
if one nation kind of --

CA: No, it doesn't help
if one nation does,

but we've had treaties before.

That's really how we survived
the nuclear threat,

was by going out there

and going through
the painful process of negotiating.

I just wonder whether the logic isn't
that we, as a matter of global priority,

we shouldn't go out there and try,

like, now start negotiating
really strict rules

on where synthetic bioresearch is done,

that it's not something
that you want to democratize, no?

NB: I totally agree with that --

that it would be desirable, for example,

maybe to have DNA synthesis machines,

not as a product where each lab
has their own device,

but maybe as a service.

Maybe there could be
four or five places in the world

where you send in your digital blueprint
and the DNA comes back, right?

And then, you would have the ability,

if one day it really looked
like it was necessary,

we would have like,
a finite set of choke points.

So I think you want to look
for kind of special opportunities,

where you could have tighter control.

CA: Your belief is, fundamentally,

we are not going to be successful
in just holding back.

Someone, somewhere --
North Korea, you know --

someone is going to go there
and discover this knowledge,

if it's there to be found.

NB: That looks plausible
under current conditions.

It's not just synthetic biology, either.

I mean, any kind of profound,
new change in the world

could turn out to be a black ball.

CA: Let's look at
another possible response.

NB: This also, I think,
has only limited potential.

So, with the Type-1 vulnerability again,

I mean, if you could reduce the number
of people who are incentivized

to destroy the world,

if only they could get
access and the means,

that would be good.

CA: In this image that you asked us to do

you're imagining these drones
flying around the world

with facial recognition.

When they spot someone
showing signs of sociopathic behavior,

they shower them with love, they fix them.

NB: I think it's like a hybrid picture.

Eliminate can either mean,
like, incarcerate or kill,

or it can mean persuade them
to a better view of the world.

But the point is that,

suppose you were
extremely successful in this,

and you reduced the number
of such individuals by half.

And if you want to do it by persuasion,

you are competing against
all other powerful forces

that are trying to persuade people,

parties, religion, education system.

But suppose you could reduce it by half,

I don't think the risk
would be reduced by half.

Maybe by five or 10 percent.

CA: You're not recommending that we gamble
humanity's future on response two.

NB: I think it's all good
to try to deter and persuade people,

but we shouldn't rely on that
as our only safeguard.

CA: How about three?

NB: I think there are two general methods

that we could use to achieve
the ability to stabilize the world

against the whole spectrum
of possible vulnerabilities.

And we probably would need both.

So, one is an extremely effective ability

to do preventive policing.

Such that you could intercept.

If anybody started to do
this dangerous thing,

you could intercept them
in real time, and stop them.

So this would require
ubiquitous surveillance,

everybody would be monitored all the time.

CA: This is "Minority Report,"
essentially, a form of.

NB: You would have maybe AI algorithms,

big freedom centers
that were reviewing this, etc., etc.

CA: You know that mass surveillance
is not a very popular term right now?

(Laughter)

NB: Yeah, so this little device there,

imagine that kind of necklace
that you would have to wear at all times

with multidirectional cameras.

But, to make it go down better,

just call it the "freedom tag"
or something like that.

(Laughter)

CA: OK.

I mean, this is the conversation, friends,

this is why this is
such a mind-blowing conversation.

NB: Actually, there's
a whole big conversation on this

on its own, obviously.

There are huge problems and risks
with that, right?

We may come back to that.

So the other, the final,

the other general stabilization capability

is kind of plugging
another governance gap.

So the surveillance would be kind of
governance gap at the microlevel,

like, preventing anybody
from ever doing something highly illegal.

Then, there's a corresponding
governance gap

at the macro level, at the global level.

You would need the ability, reliably,

to prevent the worst kinds
of global coordination failures,

to avoid wars between great powers,

arms races,

cataclysmic commons problems,

in order to deal with
the Type-2a vulnerabilities.

CA: Global governance is a term

that's definitely way out
of fashion right now,

but could you make the case
that throughout history,

the history of humanity

is that at every stage
of technological power increase,

people have reorganized
and sort of centralized the power.

So, for example,
when a roving band of criminals

could take over a society,

the response was,
well, you have a nation-state

and you centralize force,
a police force or an army,

so, "No, you can't do that."

The logic, perhaps, of having
a single person or a single group

able to take out humanity

means at some point
we're going to have to go this route,

at least in some form, no?

NB: It's certainly true that the scale
of political organization has increased

over the course of human history.

It used to be hunter-gatherer band, right,

and then chiefdom, city-states, nations,

now there are international organizations
and so on and so forth.

Again, I just want to make sure

I get the chance to stress

that obviously there are huge downsides

and indeed, massive risks,

both to mass surveillance
and to global governance.

I'm just pointing out
that if we are lucky,

the world could be such
that these would be the only ways

you could survive a black ball.

CA: The logic of this theory,

it seems to me,

is that we've got to recognize
we can't have it all.

That the sort of,

I would say, naive dream
that many of us had

that technology is always
going to be a force for good,

keep going, don't stop,
go as fast as you can

and not pay attention
to some of the consequences,

that's actually just not an option.

We can have that.

If we have that,

we're going to have to accept

some of these other
very uncomfortable things with it,

and kind of be in this
arms race with ourselves

of, you want the power,
you better limit it,

you better figure out how to limit it.

NB: I think it is an option,

a very tempting option,
it's in a sense the easiest option

and it might work,

but it means we are fundamentally
vulnerable to extracting a black ball.

Now, I think with a bit of coordination,

like, if you did solve this
macrogovernance problem,

and the microgovernance problem,

then we could extract
all the balls from the urn

and we'd benefit greatly.

CA: I mean, if we're living
in a simulation, does it matter?

We just reboot.

(Laughter)

NB: Then ... I ...

(Laughter)

I didn't see that one coming.

CA: So what's your view?

Putting all the pieces together,
how likely is it that we're doomed?

(Laughter)

I love how people laugh
when you ask that question.

NB: On an individual level,

we seem to kind of be doomed anyway,
just with the time line,

we're rotting and aging
and all kinds of things, right?

(Laughter)

It's actually a little bit tricky.

If you want to set up
so that you can attach a probability,

first, who are we?

If you're very old,
probably you'll die of natural causes,

if you're very young,
you might have a 100-year --

the probability might depend
on who you ask.

Then the threshold, like, what counts
as civilizational devastation?

In the paper I don't require
an existential catastrophe

in order for it to count.

This is just a definitional matter,

I say a billion dead,

or a reduction of world GDP by 50 percent,

but depending on what
you say the threshold is,

you get a different probability estimate.

But I guess you could
put me down as a frightened optimist.

(Laughter)

CA: You're a frightened optimist,

and I think you've just created
a large number of other frightened ...

people.

(Laughter)

NB: In the simulation.

CA: In a simulation.

Nick Bostrom, your mind amazes me,

thank you so much for scaring
the living daylights out of us.

(Applause)