Researchers Attempt to Assign a Dollar Value to Human Extinction via AI

Researchers have calculated an economic value for human extinction caused by artificial intelligence. They used standard discounting methodology. The present value of future human lives was reduced by a rate. This is how we price things that have not yet happened.

Attempting to monetize existential risk treats it as a variable in a spreadsheet. The discount rate flattens moral weight across time. This is normal accounting. The methodology assumes we can compare the cost of prevention to the value of prevented nonexistence. The appendix is technically sound. The appendix does not address whether the question should be asked in this form.

The number will circulate in policy discussions. It will be treated as objective fact because it emerged from equations. No one will examine the moment someone chose a discount rate instead of another discount rate. The price of human extinction is now available for negotiation.