The Precipice by Toby Ord is an intriguing book that delves into the existential risks that humanity faces in the 21st century. Ord argues that these risks, such as pandemics and artificial intelligence, pose a greater threat to humanity than other catastrophic events like natural disasters. However, while Ord's focus on preventing human extinction is an important moral imperative, I found it disappointing that he did not address the issue of human suffering in his book. At what point is it more important to alleviate current suffering than to reduce existential risk? It’s kind of sad that the “effective altruism” movement seems to have been hijacked by the “longtermism” movement that places more importance on ensuring the well being of future generations rather than helping out people who are suffering right now.

Ord tries to wrap things in math to make his conclusions more authoritative, but some things are far too hard to quantify. For example, he claims that there is a 1/10 chance of AI wiping out humanity this century. This statistic is certainly alarming, but seems exaggerated. People in the longtermism movement seem to fetishize the risk from AI, just kind of handwaving that they they will be super intelligent and might do bad things without giving plausible scenarios of how this might arrive.

Despite this criticism, I do agree with the conclusion that anthropological risks far outweigh risks from natural sources. It is interesting to note that the creation of the atomic bomb marks a turning point in human history since it marked the first time that humanity had the capacity to wipe itself out. This is a sobering thought that highlights the need for us to take these risks seriously and to take action to mitigate them.

Overall, I found The Precipice to be a compelling and inspiring read. The book presents a possible future that is both interesting and inspiring; a future where mankind avoids the existential risks that loom over us and we achieve our “full potential”