existential risk

The "human extinction" sense was coined by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2002[1].

existential risk (countable and uncountable, plural existential risks)

1. A hypothetical future event which could cause human extinction or permanently and severely curtail humanity's potential.
   • 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks”, in Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Ćirković, editor, Global Catastrophic Risks, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

     The scenario of humanity going extinct in the next century is a disjunctive event. It could happen as a result of any of the existential risks we already know about—or some other cause which none of us foresaw.

   • 2013 February, Nick Bostrom, “Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority”, in Global Policy‎, volume 4, number 1:

     But perhaps the strongest reason for judging the total existential risk within the next few centuries to be significant is the extreme magnitude of the values at stake.

2. A risk which could destroy or permanently damage an entity; a risk to one's existence.
   • 2019 April 18, Gregory Travis, “How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer”, in IEEE Spectrum‎:

     In an industry that relies more than anything on the appearance of total control, total safety, these two crashes pose as close to an existential risk as you can get.

   • 2020 March 30, “Tesla Faces Existential Risks”, in Seeking Alpha‎:

     I believe TSLA faces existential risk based on what is happening in the world today, and that this recent scare and economic recession will only catalyze further share price decline.