The decisions humanity makes over the next 75 years could shape the fate of billions of people — and determine whether our species survives beyond the 21st century.
In a landmark report, dozens of scientists and researchers identified 17 of the most serious health threats the world could face before the year 2100.
The researchers measured the potential impact in disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs — a standard used to estimate the number of healthy years lost because of illness, disability or premature death. If current trends persist, they found, the 17 threats could collectively cost humanity tens of billions of healthy years.
Two of those threats, researchers said, could potentially lead to the complete extinction of humanity.
The outlook is not necessarily inevitable. Researchers emphasized that many of these global health threats can still be prevented or reduced if governments and communities act quickly. Here’s what the report identified.
Catastrophic threats
Fifteen of the threats were each linked to at least 1 billion DALYs — roughly the equivalent of the health damage caused by two COVID-19 pandemics, according to the researchers.
Those threats include:
Of these, the threat associated with the biggest loss of healthy years by far was obesity, at 23.1 billion. Researchers said obesity is rising in every country in the world, with food being higher in calories and exercise decreasing.
Authors also highlight income inequality, which they estimate will have an avoidable health burden equivalent to 25 COVID-19 pandemics by 2100 (13.8 billion DALYs), and climate change, which they say could cost us at least 1.89 billion years of healthy life — though the burden is “likely even greater.”
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For all these threats, “humanity still has the agency to act,” said author Christopher J.L. Murray.
“The decisions made by leaders today will shape the health and well-being of the next generation. But delaying action will only serve to shift and increase the costs into the future,” he said.
Extinction-level threats
Of the 17 threats, two were deemed to have the potential to lead to human extinction: nuclear conflict and famine, and malicious use of AI.
While the likelihood of both “remain low,” researchers said they present “consequential threats.”
To put things in perspective, researchers didn’t include threats such as asteroid strikes or supervolcano eruptions because the probability of those occurring were too low.
First, AI. “Although AI’s potential to advance health and well-being is enormous … the risk of catastrophic harm is equally profound,” the authors wrote.
They believe AI could cause catastrophic harm by 1) designing and making new biological weapons that could be used by bad actors, 2) causing societal infrastructure to fail because it relies too heavily on AI that could be hijacked or simply malfunction and 3) breaking free from human control and it independently seeks to harm us.
They say reducing the risk of malicious AI could avert an estimated 10.4 billion DALYs.
Nuclear war and a resulting famine is probably nothing new, as it’s something society has been worrying about for over 80 years, but that doesn’t mean the threat is gone.
Researchers found that avoiding nuclear conflict would save 133 million lives and 9.35 billion DALYs by 2100.
“The future is not inevitable,” said author Dr. Natalia Kanem. “Governments and communities must act decisively starting today, to protect health and build a fairer, more peaceful and more secure future for the coming generations.”
