Guardians of the Apocalypse

Guardians of the Apocalypse - BusinessWeek: "For the uninitiated, existential risk is a broad term covering catastrophic events that could wipe out the human species. Some existential risk devotees agonize over nuclear wars, climate change, and virus outbreaks. Others, such as Schwall, put more energy into worrying about the potential downside of information technology. They fret about a super-powerful artificial intelligence run amok and hordes of killer nanobots. “There are a number of people who have knowledge in this field that estimate humanity’s chance at making it through this century at about 50 percent,” Schwall says. “Even if that number is way off and it’s one in a billion, that’s too high for me.”"