Recently Phil Torres wrote an article  where he raises a new topic in existential risks research: the question about who could be possible agents in the creation of a global catastrophe. Here he identifies five main types of agents, and two main reasons why they will create a catastrophe (error and terror).  

He discusses the following types of agents: 

(1) Superintelligence. 

(2) Idiosyncratic actors.  

(3) Ecoterrorists.  

(4) Religious terrorists.  

(5) Rogue states.  

Inspired by his work I decided to create a map of all possible agents as well as their possible reasons for creating x-risks. During this work some new ideas appeared.  

I think that a significant addition to the list of agents should be superpowers, as they are known to have created most global risks in the 20th century; corporations, as they are now on the front line of AGI creation; and pseudo-rational agents who could create a Doomsday weapon in the future to use for global blackmail (may be with positive values), or who could risk civilization’s fate for their own benefits (dangerous experiments). 

The X-risks prevention community could also be an agent of risks if it fails to prevent obvious risks, or if it uses smaller catastrophes to prevent large risks, or if it creates new dangerous ideas of possible risks which could inspire potential terrorists.  

The more technology progresses, the more types of agents will have access to dangerous technologies, even including teenagers. (like: "Why This 14-Year-Old Kid Built a Nuclear Reactor” ) 

In this situation only the number of agents with risky tech will matter, not the exact motivations of each one. But if we are unable to control tech, we could try to control potential agents or their “medium" mood at least. 

The map shows various types of agents, starting from non-agents, and ending with types of agential behaviors which could result in catastrophic consequences (error, terror, risk etc). It also shows the types of risks that are more probable for each type of agent. I think that my explanation in each case should be self evident. 

We could also show that x-risk agents will change during the pace of technological progress. In the beginning there are no agents, and later there are superpowers, and then smaller and smaller agents, until there will be millions of people with biotech labs at home. In the end there will be only one agent - SuperAI.  

So, a lessening the number of agents, and increasing their ”morality” and intelligence seem to be the most plausible directions in lowering risks. Special organizations or social networks may be created to control the most risky type of agents. Differing agents probably need differing types of control. Some ideas of this agent-specific control are listed in the map, but a real control system should be much more complex and specific.

The map shows many agents, some of them real and exist now (but don’t have dangerous capabilities), and some are only possible in moral sense or in technical sense.

So there are 4 types of agents, and I show them in the map in different colours:

1) Existing and dangerous, that is already having technology to destroy the humanity. That is superpowers, arrogant scientists – Red

2) Existing, and willing to end the world, but lacking needed technologies. (ISIS, VHEMt) - Yellow

3) Morally possible, but don’t existing. We could imagine logically consistent value systems which may result in human extinction. That is Doomsday blackmail. - Green

4) Agents, which will pose risk only after supertechnologies appear, like AI-hackers, children biohackers. - Blue

Many agents types are not fit for this classification so I rest them white in the map. 

The pdf of the map is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/agentrisk11.pdf

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

Three known attempts to make a map of x-risks prevention in the field of science exist:

1. First is the list from the Global Catastrophic Risks Institute in 2012-2013, and many links there are already not working:

2. The second was done by S. Armstrong in 2014

3. And the most beautiful and useful map was created by Andrew Critch. But its ecosystem ignores organizations which have a different view of the nature of global risks (that is, they share the value of x-risks prevention, but have another world view).

In my map I have tried to add all currently active organizations which share the value of global risks prevention.

It also regards some active independent people as organizations, if they have an important blog or field of research, but not all people are mentioned in the map. If you think that you (or someone) should be in it, please write to me at alexei.turchin@gmail.com

I used only open sources and public statements to learn about people and organizations, so I can’t provide information on the underlying net of relations.

I tried to give all organizations a short description based on its public statement and also my opinion about its activity. 

In general it seems that all small organizations are focused on their collaboration with larger ones, that is MIRI and FHI, and small organizations tend to ignore each other; this is easily explainable from the social singnaling theory. Another explanation is that larger organizations have a great ability to make contacts.

It also appears that there are several organizations with similar goal statements. 

It looks like the most cooperation exists in the field of AI safety, but most of the structure of this cooperation is not visible to the external viewer, in contrast to Wikipedia, where contributions of all individuals are visible. 

It seems that the community in general lacks three things: a united internet forum for public discussion, an x-risks wikipedia and an x-risks related scientific journal.

Ideally, a forum should be used to brainstorm ideas, a scientific journal to publish the best ideas, peer review them and present them to the outer scientific community, and a wiki to collect results.

Currently it seems more like each organization is interested in creating its own research and hoping that someone will read it. Each small organization seems to want to be the only one to present the solutions to global problems and gain full attention from the UN and governments. It raises the problem of noise and rivalry; and also raises the problem of possible incompatible solutions, especially in AI safety.

The pdf is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/riskorg5.pdf

Based on known archaeological data, we are the first technological and symbol-using civilisation on Earth (but not the first tool-using species). 
This leads to an analogy that fits Fermi’s paradox: Why are we the first civilisation on Earth? For example, flight was invented by evolution independently several times. 
We could imagine that on our planet, many civilisations appeared and also became extinct, and based on mediocre principles, we should be somewhere in the middle. For example, if 10 civilisations appeared, we have only a 10 per cent chance of being the first one.

The fact that we are the first such civilisation has strong predictive power about our expected future: it lowers the probability that there will be any other civilisations on Earth, including non-humans or even a restarting of human civilisation from scratch. It is because, if there will be many civiizations, we should not find ourselves to be the first one (It is some form of Doomsday argument, the same logic is used in Bostrom's article “Adam and Eve”).

If we are the only civilisation to exist in the history of the Earth, then we will probably become extinct not in mild way, but rather in a way which will prevent any other civilisation from appearing. There is higher probability of future (man-made) catastrophes which will not only end human civilisation, but also prevent any existence of any other civilisations on Earth.

Such catastrophes would kill most multicellular life. Nuclear war or pandemic is not that type of a catastrophe. The catastrophe must be really huge: such as irreversible global warming, grey goo or black hole in a collider.

Now, I will list possible explanations of the Fermi paradox of human past and corresponding x-risks implications:

1. We are the first civilisation on Earth, because we will prevent the existence of any future civilisations.

If our existence prevents other civilisations from appearing in the future, how could we do it? We will either become extinct in a very catastrophic way, killing all earthly life, or become a super-civilisation, which will prevent other species from becoming sapient. So, if we are really the first, then it means that "mild extinctions" are not typical for human style civilisations. Thus, pandemics, nuclear wars, devolutions and everything reversible are ruled out as main possible methods of human extinction.

If we become a super-civilisation, we will not be interested in preserving biosphera, as it will be able to create new sapient species. Or, it may be that we care about biosphere so strongly, that we will hide very well from new appearing sapient species. It will be like a cosmic zoo. It means that past civilisations on Earth may have existed, but decided to hide all traces of their existence from us, as it would help us to develop independently. So, the fact that we are the first raises the probability of a very large scale catastrophe in the future, like UFAI, or dangerous physical experiments, and reduces chances of mild x-risks such as pandemics or nuclear war. Another explanation is that any first civilisation exhausts all resources which are needed for a technological civilisation restart, such as oil, ores etc. But, in several million years most such resources will be filled again or replaced by new by tectonic movement.

2. We are not the first civilisation.

2.1. We didn't find any traces of a previous technological civilisation, yet based on what we know, there are very strong limitations for their existence. For example, every civilisation makes genetic marks, because it moves animals from one continent to another, just as humans brought dingos to Australia. It also must exhaust several important ores, create artefacts, and create new isotopes. We could be sure that we are the first tech civilisation on Earth in last 10 million years.

But, could we be sure for the past 100 million years? Maybe it was a very long time ago, like 60 million years ago (and killed dinosaurs). Carl Sagan argued that it could not have happened, because we should find traces mostly as exhausted oil reserves. The main counter argument here is that cephalisation, that is the evolutionary development of the brains, was not advanced enough 60 millions ago, to support general intelligence. Dinosaurian brains were very small. But, bird’s brains are more mass effective than mammalians. All these arguments in detail are presented in this excellent article by Brian Trent “Was there ever a dinosaurian civilisation”? 

The main x-risks here are that we will find dangerous artefacts from previous civilisation, such as weapons, nanobots, viruses, or AIs. And, if previous civilisations went extinct, it increases the chances that it is typical for civilisations to become extinct. It also means that there was some reason why an extinction occurred, and this killing force may be still active, and we could excavate it. If they existed recently, they were probably hominids, and if they were killed by a virus, it may also affect humans.

2.2. We killed them. Maya civilisation created writing independently, but Spaniards destroy their civilisation. The same is true for Neanderthals and Homo Florentines.

2.3. Myths about gods may be signs of such previous civilisation. Highly improbable.

2.4. They are still here, but they try not to intervene in human history. So, it is similar to Fermi’s Zoo solution.

2.5. They were a non-tech civilisation, and that is why we can’t find their remnants.

2.6 They may be still here, like dolphins and ants, but their intelligence is non-human and they don’t create tech.

2.7 Some groups of humans created advanced tech long before now, but prefer to hide it. Highly improbable as most tech requires large manufacturing and market.

2.8 Previous humanoid civilisation was killed by virus or prion, and our archaeological research could bring it back to life. One hypothesis of Neanderthal extinction is prionic infection because of cannibalism. The fact is - several hominid species went extinct in the last several million years.

3. Civilisations are rare

Millions of species existed on Earth, but only one was able to create technology. So, it is a rare event.Consequences: cyclic civilisations on earth are improbable. So the chances that we will be resurrected by another civilisation on Earth is small.

The chances that we will be able to reconstruct civilisation after a large scale catastrophe, are also small (as such catastrophes are atypical for civilisations and they quickly proceed to total annihilation or singularity).

It also means that technological intelligence is a difficult step in the evolutionary process, so it could be one of the solutions of the main Fermi paradox.

Safety of remains of previous civilisations (if any exist) depends on two things: the time distance from them and their level of intelligence. The greater the distance, the safer they are (as the biggest part of dangerous technology will be destructed by time or will not be dangerous to humans, like species specific viruses).

The risks also depend on the level of intelligence they reached: the higher intelligence the riskier. If anything like their remnants are ever found, strong caution is recommend.

For example, the most dangerous scenario for us will be one similar to the beginning of the book of V. Vinge “A Fire upon the deep.” We could find remnants of a very old, but very sophisticated civilisation, which will include unfriendly AI or its description, or hostile nanobots.

The most likely place for such artefacts to be preserved is on the Moon, in some cavities near the pole. It is the most stable and radiation shielded place near Earth.

I think that based on (no) evidence, estimation of the probability of past tech civilisation should be less than 1 per cent. While it is enough to think that they most likely don’t exist, it is not enough to completely ignore risk of their artefacts, which anyway is less than 0.1 per cent.

Meta: the main idea for this post came to me in a night dream, several years ago.

There are many natural global risks. The greatest of these known risks are asteroid impacts and supervolcanos. 

Supervolcanos seem to pose the highest risk, as we sit on the ocean of molten iron, oversaturated with dissolved gases, just 3000 km below surface and its energy slowly moving up via hot spots. Many past extinctions are also connected with large eruptions from supervolcanos. 

Impacts also pose a significant risk. But, if we project the past rate of large extinctions due to impacts into the future, we will see that they occur only once in several million years. Thus, the likelihood of an asteroid impact in the next century is an order of magnitude of 1 in 100 000. That is negligibly small compared with the risks of AI, nanotech, biotech, etc.

The main natural risk is a meta-risk. Are we able to correctly estimate natural risks rates and project them into the future? And also, could we accidentally unleash natural catastrophe which is long overdue?

There are several reasons for possible underestimation, which are listed in the right column of the map. 

1. Anthropic shadow that is survival bias. This is a well-established idea by Bostrom, but the following four ideas are mostly my conclusions from it.

2. It is also the fact that we should find ourselves at the end of period of stability for any important aspect of our environment (atmosphere, sun stability, crust stability, vacuum stability). It is true if the Rare Earth hypothesis is true and our conditions are very unique in the universe.

3. From (2) is following that our environment may be very fragile for human interventions (think about global warming). Its fragility is like fragility of an overblown balloon poked by small needle.

4. Also, human intelligence was best adaptation instrument during the period of intense climate changes, which quickly evolved in an always changing environment. So, it should not be surprising that we find ourselves in a period of instability (think of Toba eruption, Clovis comet, Young drias, Ice ages) and in an unstable environment, as it help general intelligence to evolve.

5. Period of changes are themselves marks of the end of stability periods for many process and are precursors for larger catastrophes. (For example, intermittent ice ages may precede Snow ball Earth, or smaller impacts with comets debris may precede an impact with larger remnants of the main body). 

Each of these five points may raise the probability of natural risks by order of magnitude in my opinion, which combined will result in several orders of magnitude, which seems to be too high and probably is "catastrophism bias".

(More about it is in my article “Why anthropic principle stopped to defend us”  which needs substantial revision) 

In conclusion, I think that when studying natural risks, a key aspect we should be checking is the hypothesis that we live in non-typical period in a very fragile environment.

For example, some scientists think that 30 000 years ago, a large Centaris comet broke into the inner Solar system, split into pieces (including Encke comet and Taurid meteor showers as well as Tunguska body) and we live in the period of bombardment which has 100 times more intensity than average. Others believe that methane hydrates are very fragile and small human warming could result in dangerous positive feed back.  

I tried to list all known natural risks (I am interested in new suggestions). I divided them into two classes: proven and speculative. Most speculative risks are probably false.

Most probable risks in the map are marked red. My crazy ideas are marked green. Some ideas come from obscure Russian literature. For example, an idea, that hydro carbonates could be created naturally inside Earth (like abiogenic oil) and large pockets of them could accumulate in the mantle. Some of them could be natural explosives, like toluene, and they could be cause of kimberlitic explosions. http://www.geokniga.org/books/6908 While the fact of kimberlitic explosion is well known and their energy is like impact of kilometer sized asteroids, I never read about contemporary risks of such explosions.

The pdf of the map is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/naturalrisks11.pdf

There is a question which is especially disturbing during sleepless August nights, and which could cut your train of thought with existential worry at any unpredictable moment.

The question is, “Why does anything exist at all?” It seems more logical that nothing will ever exist.

A more specific form of the question is “How has our universe appeared from nothing?” The last question has some hidden assumptions (about time, universe, nothing and causality), but it is also is more concrete.

Let’s try to put these thoughts into some form of “logical equation”:

1.”Nothingness + deterministic causality = non existence”

2. But “I = exist”. 

So something is wrong in this set of conjectures. If the first conjecture is false, then either nothingness is able to create existence, or causality is able to create it, or existence is not existence. 

There is also a chance that our binary logic is wrong.

Listing these possibilities we can create a map of solutions of the “nothingness problem”.

There are two (main) ways in which we could try to answer this question: we could go UP from a logical-philosophical level, or we could go DOWN using our best physical theories to the moment of the universe’s appearance and the nature of causality. 

Our theories of general relativity, QM and inflation are good for describing the (almost) beginning of the universe. As Krauss showed, the only thing we need is a random generator of simple physical laws in the beginning. But the origin of this thing is still not clear.

There is a gap between these two levels of the explanation, and a really good theory should be able to fill it, that is to show the way between first existing thing and smallest working set of physical laws (and Woldram’s idea about cellular automata is one of such possible bridges).

But we don’t need the bridge yet. We need explanation how anything exists at all. 

How we going to solve the problem? Where we can get information?

Possible sources of evidence:

1. Correlation between physical and philosophical theories. There is an interesting way to do so using the fact that the nature of nothingness, causality and existence are somehow presented within the character of physical laws. That is, we could use the type of physical laws we observe as evidence of the nature of causality. 

While neither physical nor philosophical ways of studying the origin of the universe are sufficient, together they could provide enough information. This evidence comes from QM, where it supports the idea of fluctuations, which is basically ability of nature to create something out of nothing. GR theory also presents idea of cosmological singularity.

The evidence also comes from the mathematical simplicity of physical laws.

2. Building the bridge. If we show all steps from nothingness to the basic set of physical laws for at least one plausible way, it will be strong evidence of the correctness of our understanding.

3. Zero logical contradictions. The best answer is the one that is most logical.

4. Using the Copernican mediocrity principle, I am in a typical universe and situation. So what could I conclude about the distribution of various universes? And from this distribution what should I learn about the way it manifested? For example, a mathematical multiverse favors more complex universes; it contradicts the simplicity of observed physical laws and also of my experiences.

5. Introspection. Cogito ergo sum is the simplest introspection and act of self-awareness. But Husserlian phenomenology may also be used.

Most probable explanations

Most current scientists (who dare to think about it) belong to one of two schools of thoughts:

1. The universe appeared from nothingness, which is not emptiness, but somehow able to create. The main figure here is Krauss. The problem here is that nothingness is presented as some kind of magic substance.

2. The mathematical universe hypothesis (MUH). The main author here is Tegmark. The theory seems logical and economical from the perspective of Occam’s razor, but is not supported by evidence and also implies the existence of some strange things. The main problem is that our universe seems to have developed from one simple point based on our best physical theories. But in the mathematical universe more complex things are equally as probable as simple things, so a typical observer could be extremely complex in an extremely complex world. There are also some problems with the Godel theorem. It also ignores observation and qualia. 

So the most promising way to create a final theory is to get rid of all mystical answers and words, like “existence” and “nothingness”, and update MUH in such a way that it will naturally favor simple laws and simple observers (with subjective experiences based on qualia).

One such patch was suggested by Tegmark in respond to criticism of MUH, a computational universe (CUH), which restricts math objects to computable functions only. It is similar to S.Wolfram’s cellular automata theory.

Another approach is the “logical universe”, where logic works instead of causality. It is almost the same as mathematical universe, with one difference: In the math world everything exists simultaneously, like all possible numbers, but in the logical world each number N is a consequence of  N-1. As a result, a complex thing exists only if a (finite?) path to it exists through simpler things. 

And this is exactly what we see in the observable universe. It also means that extremely complex AIs exist, but in the future (or in a multi-level simulation). It also solves the meritocracy problem – I am a typical observer from the class of observer who is still thinking about the origins of the universe. It also prevents mathematical Boltzmann brains, as any of them must have possible pre-history.

Logic still exists in nothingness (or elephants could appear from nothingness). So a logical universe also incorporates theories in which the universe appeared from nothing.

(We could also update the math world by adding qualia in it as axioms, which would be a “class of different but simple objects”. But I will not go deeper here, as the idea needs more thinking and many pages)

So a logical universe seems to me now a good candidate theory for further patching and integration. 

Usefulness of the question

The answer will be useful, as it will help us to find the real nature of reality, including the role of consciousness in it and the fundamental theory of everything, helping us to survive the end of the universe, solve the identity problem, and solve “quantum immortality”. 

It will help to prevent the halting of future AI if it has to answer the question of whether it really exists or not. Or we will create a philosophical landmine to stop it like the following one:

“If you really exist print 1, but if you are only possible AI, print 0”.

The structure of the map

The map has 10 main blocks which correspond to the main ways of reasoning about how the universe appeared. Each has several subtypes.

The map has three colors, which show the plausibility of each theory. Red stands for implausible or disproved theories, green is most consistent and promising explanations, and yellow is everything between. This classification is subjective and presents my current view. 

I tried to disprove any suggested idea to add falsifiability in the third column of the map. I hope it result in truly Bayesian approach there we have field of evidence, field of all possible hypothesis and 

This map is paired with “How to survive the end of the Universe” map.

The pdf is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/universeorigin7.pdf 

Meta:

Time used: 27 years of background thinking, 15 days of reading, editing and drawing.

Best reading:

Parfit – discuss different possibilities, no concrete answer
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this

Good text from a famous blogger
http://waitbutwhy.com/table/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing

“Because "nothing" is inherently unstable”
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141106-why-does-anything-exist-at-all

Here are some interesting answers 
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-universe-exist-Why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing

Krauss “A universe from nothing”
https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468

Tegmark’s main article, 2007, all MUH and CUH ideas discussed, extensive literature, critics responded
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646.pdf

Juergen Schmidhuber. Algorithmic Theories of Everything
discusses the measure between various theories of everything; the article is complex, but interesting
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011122

ToE must explain how the universe appeared

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything 

A discussion about the logical contradictions of any final theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything_(philosophy
“The Price of an Ultimate Theory” Nicholas Rescher 
Philosophia Naturalis 37 (1):1-20 (2000)

Explanation about the mass of the universe and negative gravitational energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe

Stephen Hawking famously said that aliens are one of the main risks to human existence. In this map I will try to show all rational ways how aliens could result in human extinction. Paradoxically, even if aliens don’t exist, we may be even in bigger danger.

1.No aliens exist in our past light cone

1a. Great Filter is behind us. So Rare Earth is true. There are natural forces in our universe which are against life on Earth, but we don’t know if they are still active. We strongly underestimate such forces because of anthropic shadow. Such still active forces could be: gamma-ray bursts (and other types of cosmic explosions like magnitars), the instability of Earth’s atmosphere,  the frequency of large scale volcanism and asteroid impacts. We may also underestimate the fragility of our environment in its sensitivity to small human influences, like global warming becoming runaway global warming.

1b. Great filter is ahead of us (and it is not UFAI). Katja Grace shows that this is a much more probable solution to the Fermi paradox because of one particular version of the Doomsday argument, SIA. All technological civilizations go extinct before they become interstellar supercivilizations, that is in something like the next century on the scale of Earth’s timeline. This is in accordance with our observation that new technologies create stronger and stronger means of destruction which are available to smaller groups of people, and this process is exponential. So all civilizations terminate themselves before they can create AI, or their AI is unstable and self terminates too (I have explained elsewhere why this could happen ). 

2.      Aliens still exist in our light cone.

a)      They exist in the form of a UFAI explosion wave, which is travelling through space at the speed of light. EY thinks that this will be a natural outcome of evolution of AI. We can’t see the wave by definition, and we can find ourselves only in the regions of the Universe, which it hasn’t yet reached. If we create our own wave of AI, which is capable of conquering a big part of the Galaxy, we may be safe from alien wave of AI. Such a wave could be started very far away but sooner or later it would reach us. Anthropic shadow distorts our calculations about its probability.

b)      SETI-attack. Aliens exist very far away from us, so they can’t reach us physically (yet) but are able to send information. Here the risk of a SETI-attack exists, i.e. aliens will send us a description of a computer and a program, which is AI, and this will convert the Earth into another sending outpost. Such messages should dominate between all SETI messages. As we get stronger and stronger radio telescopes and other instruments, we have more and more chances of finding messages from them.

c)      Aliens are near (several hundred light years), and know about the Earth, so they have already sent physical space ships (or other weapons) to us, as they have found signs of our technological development and don’t want to have enemies in their neighborhood. They could send near–speed-of-light projectiles or beams of particles on an exact collision course with Earth, but this seems improbable, because if they are so near, why haven’t they didn’t reached Earth yet?

d)      Aliens are here. Alien nanobots could be in my room now, and there is no way I could detect them. But sooner or later developing human technologies will be able to find them, which will result in some form of confrontation. If there are aliens here, they could be in “Berserker” mode, i.e. they wait until humanity reaches some unknown threshold and then attack. Aliens may be actively participating in Earth’s progress, like “progressors”, but the main problem is that their understanding of a positive outcome may be not aligned with our own values (like the problem of FAI).

e)      Deadly remains and alien zombies. Aliens have suffered some kind of existential catastrophe, and its consequences will affect us. If they created vacuum phase transition during accelerator experiments, it could reach us at the speed of light without warning. If they created self-replicating non sentient nanobots (grey goo), it could travel as interstellar stardust and convert all solid matter in nanobots, so we could encounter such a grey goo wave in space. If they created at least one von Neumann probe, with narrow AI, it still could conquer the Universe and be dangerous to Earthlings. If their AI crashed it could have semi-intelligent remnants with a random and crazy goal system, which roams the Universe. (But they will probably evolve in the colonization wave of von Neumann probes anyway.) If we find their planet or artifacts they still could carry dangerous tech like dormant AI programs, nanobots or bacteria. (Vernor Vinge had this idea as the starting point of the plot in his novel “Fire Upon the Deep”)

f)       We could attract the attention of aliens by METI. Sending signals to stars in order to initiate communication we could tell potentially hostile aliens our position in space. Some people advocate for it like Zaitsev, others are strongly opposed. The risks of METI are smaller than SETI in my opinion, as our radiosignals can only reach the nearest hundreds of light years before we create our own strong AI. So we will be able repulse the most plausible ways of space aggression, but using SETI we able to receive signals from much further distances, perhaps as much as one billion light years, if aliens convert their entire home galaxy to a large screen, where they draw a static picture, using individual stars as pixels. They will use vN probes and complex algorithms to draw such picture, and I estimate that it could present messages as large as 1 Gb and will visible by half of the Universe. So SETI is exposed to a much larger part of the Universe (perhaps as much as 10 to the power of 10 more times the number of stars), and also the danger of SETI is immediate, not in a hundred years from now.

g)      Space war. During future space exploration humanity may encounter aliens in the Galaxy which are at the same level of development and it may result in classical star wars.

h)      They will not help us. They are here or nearby, but have decided not to help us in x-risks prevention, or not to broadcast (if they are far) information about most the important x-risks via SETI and about proven ways of preventing them. So they are not altruistic enough to save us from x-risks.

3. If we are in a simulation, then the owners of the simulations are aliens for us and they could switch the simulation off. Slow switch-off is possible and in some conditions it will be the main observable way of switch-off. 

4. False beliefs in aliens may result in incorrect decisions. Ronald Reagan saw something which he thought was a UFO (it was not) and he also had early onset Alzheimer’s, which may be one of the reasons he invested a lot into the creation of SDI, which also provoked a stronger confrontation with the USSR. (BTW, it is only my conjecture, but I use it as illustration how false believes may result in wrong decisions.)

5. Prevention of the x-risks using aliens:

1.      Strange strategy. If all rational straightforward strategies to prevent extinction have failed, as implied by one interpretation of the Fermi paradox, we should try a random strategy.

2.      Resurrection by aliens. We could preserve some information about humanity hoping that aliens will resurrect us, or they could return us to life using our remains on Earth. Voyagers already have such information, and they and other satellites may have occasional samples of human DNA. Radio signals from Earth also carry a lot of information.

3.      Request for help. We could send radio messages with a request for help. (Very skeptical about this, it is only a gesture of despair, if they are not already hiding in the solar system)

4.      Get advice via SETI. We could find advice on how to prevent x-risks in alien messages received via SETI.

5.      They are ready to save us. Perhaps they are here and will act to save us, if the situation develops into something really bad.

6.      We are the risk.  We will spread through the universe and colonize other planets, preventing the existence of many alien civilizations, or change their potential and perspectives permanently. So we will be the existential risk for them.

6. We are the risks for future aleins.

In total, there is several significant probability things, mostly connected with Fermi paradox solutions. No matter where is Great filter, we are at risk. If we had passed it, we live in fragile universe, but most probable conclusion is that Great Filter is very soon.

Another important thing is risks of passive SETI, which is most plausible way we could encounter aliens in near–term future.

Also there are important risks that we are in simulation, but that it is created not by our possible ancestors, but by aliens, who may have much less compassion to us (or by UFAI). In the last case the simulation be modeling unpleasant future, including large scale catastrophes and human sufferings.

The pdf is here: 

“Identity” here refers to the question “will my copy be me, and if yes, on which conditions?” It results in several paradoxes which I will not repeat here, hoping that they are known to the reader.

Identity is one of the most complex problems, like safe AI or aging. It only appears be simple. It is complex because it has to answer the question: “Who is who?” in the universe, that is to create a trajectory in the space of all possible minds, connecting identical or continuous observer-moments. But such a trajectory would be of the same complexity as all space of possible minds, and that is very complex.

There have been several attempts to dismiss the complexity of the identity problem, like open individualism (I am everybody) or zero-individualism (I exist only now). But they do not prevent the existence of “practical identity” which I use when planning my tomorrow or when I am afraid of future pain.

The identity problem is also very important. If we (or AI) arrive at an incorrect solution, we will end up being replaced by p-zombies or just copies-which-are-not-me during a “great uploading”. It will be a very subtle end of the world.

The identity problem is also equivalent to the immortality problem. if I am able to describe “what is me”, I would know what I need to save forever. This has practical importance now, as I am collecting data for my digital immortality (I even created a startup about it and the map will be my main contribution to it. If I solve the identity problem I will be able to sell the solution as a service http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-transhumanist-records-everything-around-him-so-his-mind-will-live-forever)

So we need to know how much and what kind of information I should preserve in order to be resurrected by future AI. What information is enough to create a copy of me? And is information enough at all?

Moreover, the identity problem (IP) may be equivalent to the benevolent AI problem, because the first problem is, in a nutshell, “What is me” and the second is “What is good for me”. Regardless, the IP requires a solution of consciousness problem, and AI problem (that is solving the nature of intelligence) are somewhat similar topics.

I wrote 100+ pages trying to solve the IP, and became lost in the ocean of ideas. So I decided to use something like the AIXI method of problem solving: I will list all possible solutions, even the most crazy ones, and then assess them.

The following map is connected with several other maps: the map of p-zombies, the plan of future research into the identity problem, and the map of copies. http://lesswrong.com/lw/nsz/the_map_of_pzombies/

The map is based on idea that each definition of identity is also a definition of Self, and it is also strongly connected with one philosophical world view (for example, dualism). Each definition of identity answers a question “what is identical to what”. Each definition also provides its own answers to the copy problem as well as to its own definition of death - which is just the end of identity – and also presents its own idea of how to reach immortality.

So on the horizontal axis we have classes of solutions:

“Self" definition - corresponding identity definition - philosophical reality theory - criteria and question of identity - death and immortality definitions.

On the vertical axis are presented various theories of Self and identity from the most popular on the upper level to the less popular described below:

1) The group of theories which claim that a copy is not original, because some kind of non informational identity substrate exists. Different substrates: same atoms, qualia, soul or - most popular - continuity of consciousness. All of them require that the physicalism will be false. But some instruments for preserving identity could be built. For example we could preserve the same atoms or preserve the continuity of consciousness of some process like the fire of a candle. But no valid arguments exist for any of these theories. In Parfit’s terms it is a numerical identity (being the same person). It answers the question “What I will experience in the next moment of time"

2) The group of theories which claim that a copy is original, if it is informationally the same. This is the main question about the required amount of information for the identity. Some theories obviously require too much information, like the positions of all atoms in the body to be the same, and other theories obviously do not require enough information, like the DNA and the name.

3) The group of theories which see identity as a social phenomenon. My identity is defined by my location and by the ability of others to recognise me as me.

4) The group of theories which connect my identity with my ability to make plans for future actions. Identity is a meaningful is part of a decision theory.

5)  Indirect definitions of self. This a group of theories which define something with which self is strongly connected, but which is not self. It is a biological brain, space-time continuity, atoms, cells or complexity. In this situation we say that we don’t know what constitutes identity but we could know with what it is directly connected and could preserve it.

6) Identity as a sum of all its attributes, including name, documents, and recognition by other people. It is close to Leibniz’s definition of identity. Basically, it is a duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is probably a duck. 

7) Human identity is something very different to identity of other things or possible minds, as humans have evolved to have an idea of identity, self-image, the ability to distinguish their own identity and the identity of others, and to predict its identity. So it is a complex adaptation which consists of many parts, and even if some parts are missed, they could be restored using other parts. 

There also a problem of legal identity and responsibility. 

8)  Self-determination. “Self” controls identity, creating its own criteria of identity and declaring its nature. The main idea here is that the conscious mind can redefine its identity in the most useful way. It also includes the idea that self and identity evolve during differing stages of personal human evolution. 

9) Identity is meaningless. The popularity of this subset of ideas is growing. Zero-identity and  open identity both belong to this subset. The main contra-argument here is that if we cut the idea of identity, future planning will be impossible and we will have to return to some kind of identity through the back door. The idea of identity comes also with the idea of the values of individuality. If we are replaceable like ants in an anthill, there are no identity problems. There is also no problem with murder.

The following is a series of even less popular theories of identity, some of them I just constructed ad hoc.

10)  Self is a subset of all thinking beings. We could see a space of all possible minds as divided into subsets, and call them separate personalities.

11)  Non-binary definitions of identity.

The idea that me or not-me identity solutions are too simple and result in all logical problems. if we define identity continuously, as a digit of the interval (0,1), we will get rid of some paradoxes and thus be able to calculate the identity level of similarity or time until the given next stage could be used as such a measure. Even a complex digit can be used if we include informational and continuous identity (in a Parfit meaning).

12) Negative definitions of identity: we could try to say what is not me.

13) Identity as overlapping observer-moments.

14) Identity as a field of indexical uncertainty, that is a group of observers to which I belong, but can’t know which one I am.

15) Conservative approach to identity. As we don’t know what identity is we should try to save as much as possible, and risk our identity only if it is the only means of survival. That means no copy/paste transportation to Mars for pleasure, but yes if it is the only chance to survive (this is my own position).

16)  Identity as individuality, i.e. uniqueness. If individuality doesn’t exist or doesn’t have any value, identity is not important.

17) Identity as a result of the ability to distinguish different people. Identity here is a property of perception.

18) Mathematical identity. Identity may be presented as a number sequence, where each number describes a full state of mind. Useful toy model.

19) Infinite identity. The main idea here is that any mind has the non-zero probability of becoming any other mind after a series of transformations. So only one identity exists in all the space of all possible minds, but the expected time for me to become a given person is dramatically different in the case of future me (1 day) and a random person (10 to the power of 100 years). This theory also needs a special version of quantum immortality which resets “memories” of a dying being to zero, resulting in something like reincarnation, or an infinitely repeating universe in the style of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence.  

20) Identity in a multilevel simulation. As we probably live in a simulation, there is a chance that it is multiplayer game in which one gamer has several avatars and can constantly have experiences through all of them. It is like one eye through several people.

21) Splitting identity. This is an idea that future identity could split into several (or infinitely many) streams. If we live in a quantum multiverse we split every second without any (perceived) problems. We are also adapted to have several future copies if we think about “me-tomorrow” and “me-the-day-after-tomorrow”.

This list shows only groups of identity definitions, many more smaller ideas are included in the map.

The only rational choice I see is a conservative approach, acknowledging that we don’t know the nature of identity and trying to save as much as possible of each situation in order to preserve identity.

The pdf: http://immortality-roadmap.com/identityeng8.pdf