The whole point of Bostrom’s term is to collect together outcomes where humanity fails to achieve its potential. This is what is most important for total utilitarians. Maybe he should have used a different name, but there needs to be a term for this category of loss.
I definitely think he could have used a more expressive term, but nevertheless, I believe at this point the vast majority of people who use the term X-risk don’t do so with Bostrom’s intended meaning in mind, because very few are as extreme total utilitarians as him. And at that point I think we can just say the word’s meaning has shifted. May be annoying for Bostrom, but think of Richard Dawkins and what has become of “meme”. It happens.
The whole point of Bostrom’s term is to collect together outcomes where humanity fails to achieve its potential. This is what is most important for total utilitarians. Maybe he should have used a different name, but there needs to be a term for this category of loss.
I definitely think he could have used a more expressive term, but nevertheless, I believe at this point the vast majority of people who use the term X-risk don’t do so with Bostrom’s intended meaning in mind, because very few are as extreme total utilitarians as him. And at that point I think we can just say the word’s meaning has shifted. May be annoying for Bostrom, but think of Richard Dawkins and what has become of “meme”. It happens.