Longtermism is the view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.^[1]^[2]

Longtermism may be seen as following from the conjunction of three key claims.^[3] First, future people matter morally. Second, the vast majority of people that will ever exist, if Earth-originating intelligence is not prematurely extinguished, exist in the future. Third, people alive today can predictably influence whether these people exist, and how well their lives go.

Types of longtermism

Strong vs. weak longtermism

Strong longtermism holds that positively influencing the long-term future is the key moral priority of our time. This form of longtermism was introduced by Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill,^[4] and has precedents in the work of Nick Bostrom,^[5]^[6] Nick Beckstead,^[7]^[8] and others. Note that the authors do not define or discuss "weak" longtermism; the contrast is rather with longtermism as such, which as noted above holds that positively influencing the long-term future is a key priority, but not necessarily the top priority.

Patient vs. urgent longtermism

This distinction can be explained in reference to the hinge of history hypothesis, i.e. the hypothesis that we are currently living at a time where humanity has unusually high influence over the long-term future. Urgent longtermists find the hypothesis plausible and, accordingly, hold that it makes sense to spend our altruistic resources relatively quickly. (Altruistic resources include not just financial assets, but other resources that can accumulate and be spent deliberately in the pursuit of altruistic goals, such as credibility, career capital and coordination ability.) By contrast, patient longtermists hold that the opportunities for influence are not concentrated in the near term and, in line with this, they favour investing these resources so that they can be deployed at some point in the future, when the moments of significant influence arrive.

Broad vs. targeted longtermism

This distinction was originally introduced by Nick Beckstead in his doctoral dissertation, On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future.^[9] Targeted (or narrow) longtermism attempts to positively influence the long-term future by focusing on specific, identifiable scenarios, such as the risks of misaligned AI or an engineered pandemic. By contrast, broad longtermis...

Madeleine Chang

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