Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Avoiding the Great Filter: A Simulation of Important Factors for Human Survival

Jonathan H. Jiang
* ORCID logo ,
Ruoxin Huang
,
Prithwis Das
ORCID logo ,
Fuyang Feng
,
Philip E. Rosen
,
Chenyu Zuo
,
Rocky Gao
,
Kristen A. Fahy
,
Leopold Van Ijzendoorn
ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 2 September 2022 / Approved: 5 September 2022 / Online: 5 September 2022 (13:09:39 CEST)

How to cite: Jiang, J.H.; Huang, R.; Das, P.; Feng, F.; Rosen, P.E.; Zuo, C.; Gao, R.; Fahy, K.A.; Ijzendoorn, L.V. Avoiding the Great Filter: A Simulation of Important Factors for Human Survival. Preprints 2022, 2022090061. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0061.v1 Jiang, J.H.; Huang, R.; Das, P.; Feng, F.; Rosen, P.E.; Zuo, C.; Gao, R.; Fahy, K.A.; Ijzendoorn, L.V. Avoiding the Great Filter: A Simulation of Important Factors for Human Survival. Preprints 2022, 2022090061. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0061.v1

Abstract

Humanity’s path to avoiding extinction is a daunting and inevitable challenge which proves difficult to solve, partially due to the lack of data and evidence surrounding the concept. We aim to address this confusion by addressing the most dangerous threats to humanity, in hopes of providing a direction to approach this problem. Using a probabilistic mode, we observed the effects of nuclear war, climate change, asteroid impacts, artificial intelligence and pandemics, which are the most harmful disasters in terms of their extent of destruction on the length of human survival. We consider the starting point of the predicted average number of survival years as the present calendar year. Nuclear war, when sampling from an artificial normal distribution, results in an average human survival time of 60 years into the future starting from the present, before a civilization-ending disaster. While climate change results in an average human survival time of 193 years, the simulation based on impact from asteroids results in an average of 1754 years. Since the risks from asteroid impacts could be considered in the far future, it can be concluded that nuclear war, climate change, and pandemics are presently the most prominent threats to humanity. Additionally, the danger from superiority of artificial intelligence over humans, although abstract in its sense, is a factor of careful study and could also have wide ranging implications, impeding man’s advancements towards becoming a more advanced civilization.

Keywords

Great Filter; Civilization; Earth; Humanity

Subject

Arts and Humanities, Humanities

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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