Nuclear war, malicious AI pose extinction risk by 2100 among 17 health threats: Lancet

What happened

Nuclear war, malicious AI pose extinction risk by 2100 among 17 health threats: Lancet, according to Interesting Engineering. Nuclear war and the malicious use of artificial intelligence top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, and both carry a low but real risk of human extinction by 2100, a new global assessment says. The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health said all the threats interact and must be addressed together.

It stressed there is “a realistic route to act” on each. “Decisions made by leaders today will shape the health and wellbeing of the next generation,” said Christopher Murray, commission co-chair and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

How threats were ranked The commission modeled how many years in good health might be lost to sickness, disability or early death from each threat, based on current trajectories. The measure is known as disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs.