Ord’s methodology is unworkable and useless

The assessments by existential risk scholars—Ord and MacAskill— have been the least convincing thus far. Ord uses an unworkable, ambiguous definition of existential risk.60 He defines an existential risk as one that “threatens the destruction of humanity’s longterm potential”. However, what our potential is depends on one’s values. Ord suggests that we minimise existential risks first and then determine “our potential” through a “Long Reflection”. This would essentially be a centuries-long worldwide philosophical conversation. This strategy creates a paradox: we are supposed to minimise risks to a concept that we cannot define until after we have reduced those risks. It is difficult—if not impossible— to assess climate change using this definition, as Ord doesn’t explicitly state his values, nor what “our potential” is. His analysis misses much of the most recent science and does not sufficiently consider ‘indirect’ impacts. Moreover, the chapter does not cogently answer the question of whether climate change will result in human extinction. Instead, after roughly estimating the direct impacts, Ord concludes that they will not make the entirety of Earth uninhabitable. This is an entirely different question to the likelihood of climate change causing human extinction. Ord’s use of a precise numerical figure is also largely baseless. As noted earlier, even groups of the best super-forecasters making predictions on clearly defined questions have little accuracy after 12 months.61