“British public perception of existential risks” by Jamie Elsey, David_Moss

Key points We surveyed UK respondents, asking them to list (without prompting) the three factors they thought most likely to cause human extinction in the next 100 years. We estimate AI risk to be reported by 9% of British adults, at a similar level to Natural disasters (10%) The relative ordering of risks aligns well with previous polling from YouGov in 2023, using an alternative methodology. Climate change (58%) and Nuclear weapons/WMDs (42%) were top concerns, followed by Pandemics (37%). Some demographic effects were quite large, such as that men were substantially more likely than women to raise the issue of nuclear weapons. Polling suggests AI risk is not a wholly niche issue, but is substantially less of a concern to the public than cases such as nuclear weapons or the climate. This post is also available on Rethink Priorities' website, or to download as a PDF here. [...] ---Outline:(00:05) Key points(01:16) Introduction(04:00) Methodology in brief(09:06) Expected causes of extinction(10:42) Associations between demographic variables and selected risks(16:09) Discussion(20:02) Appendix: Associations between causes of extinctionThe original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. The original text contained 10 images which were described by AI. --- First published: October 25th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zdsNJb5JdWoCv3DyR/british-public-perception-of-existential-risks --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.