YouGov asked 1,000 Americans what worried them most about killing off the human race.
Artificial intelligence is scarier than God but not quite as frightening as climate change. Each of these is much more frightening than an alien invasion.
Nuclear Weapons still top the list, followed by war, and alien invasion ranks relatively low.
But what if the space aliens from the fifth dimension infiltrated our computers to cause a nuclear launch and World War III?
Or if they caused a pandemic that would result in sterility?
Just so many ways the world can end.
If you don’t want to rely on opinion polls, the folks at 80,000 hours are a source of careful thought on existential risk in general. Their discussion of this particular data set can be found here.
Whew, what a relief to know AI is just a little scarier than GOD!