{"id":"a_demo_6a935e5d531de2a20a","question_id":"q_6a935e5d531de2a20a","latest_rev":1,"machine_price_cents":50,"freshness_hours":72,"external_url":null,"teaser":{"verdict":"As of 2026-09-08, humanity has an estimated 98% probability of surviving to January 1, 2050, with a plausible range of 94 to 99. A catastrophe killing at least 10% of the world's population is a different and more likely outcome, estimated here at 8%, with a range of 3 to 20. These are editorial judgements informed by published risk surveys, whose participants disagree sharply and mostly forecast ","citations":8},"downloads":9,"unique_buyers":0,"age_hours":890.6092780555556,"title":"Will humanity survive until 2050?","forecast":[{"base_rate":"Humanity's long survival record constrains natural risk but does not identify a frequency for new technological hazards.","reasoning":"Literal extinction is narrower than global catastrophe or permanent loss of human potential. Published forecasting exercises show substantial disagreement and generally use a 2100 horizon. The 2% extinction risk here is an editorial judgement allowing danger to arrive early, not a published consensus.","created_at":"2026-09-08T14:05:07Z","key_drivers":["Extinction requires loss of every human","Timing of dangerous technological capabilities","Capacity to contain and recover from disasters"],"probability":0.98,"concludes_at":"2050-01-01","is_concluded":false,"forecast_text":"At least one living biological human exists at 00:00 UTC on January 1, 2050.","confidence_lower":0.94,"confidence_upper":0.99,"resolution_source":"Independently corroborated evidence of living humans on 2050-01-01; UN and other credible demographic records"},{"base_rate":"Tournament median catastrophe forecasts by 2100 were about 9% for superforecasters and 20% for experts; these are elicited beliefs, not observed rates.","reasoning":"Severe global mortality is more likely than literal extinction. The estimate is an editorial judgement informed by the tournament's longer-horizon catastrophe estimates and evidence of nuclear and biological vulnerabilities. Overlapping causes are counted once.","created_at":"2026-09-08T14:05:07Z","key_drivers":["Nuclear escalation","Biological and autonomous-system hazards","Correlated failures of emergency response"],"probability":0.08,"concludes_at":"2050-01-01","is_concluded":false,"forecast_text":"A single catastrophe or causally connected episode beginning after September 8, 2026 kills at least 10% of the pre-event world population before January 1, 2050.","confidence_lower":0.03,"confidence_upper":0.2,"resolution_source":"UN and WHO mortality estimates, supplemented by peer-reviewed demographic attribution"}],"sources_count":8,"word_count":1165,"revisions":[{"rev":1,"published_at":"2026-09-08T14:35:54.867Z","note":null,"freed_at":"2026-09-11T14:35:54.867Z"}]}