One of my great fears is to be around for the extinction of humanity. At some point, our species will kick the bucket, but I don't want to be here for it. And while there are many ways that humanity could go bust, some are far more embarrassing than others. What's the most humiliating way for homo sapiens to go? Read on.
10. Voluntary absorption. We just agree to all become cyborgs/merge with the overmind/upload our consciousness into the cloud. I'm not saying this is the choice humanity should make, but if we did make it at least it'd be a choice.
9. Alien Invasion. I'm sure we'd try to put up a scrap. But if an alien race has sufficient technology to traverse the stars and then decides to exterminate us, well, there's no shame in getting beat by a better team. (Note: this entry would soar up the list if humanity idiotically decides to intentionally provoke the aliens).
8. Sun absorbs the Earth. Or something similar. This is the closest thing I can think of to humanity "beating the game". The only reason it isn't the absolute least embarrassing way to go is that if we made it this long we'll have had a lot of time to figure out how to cheat death.
7. Unavoidable natural disaster. Like a giant meteor hitting the earth or something. Not our fault! What can you do? Sometimes these things just happen!
6. Slow-moving environmental catastrophe. Global warming and company. It's definitely embarrassing because we all can see it coming and we could do something about it, but we're so tied up in stupid human drama that we can't get our act together. Extinction because "all of us just kept on living our lives in our normal pattern" = mid-level embarrassment, I'd say.
5. Nuclear holocaust. Almost passe at this point. Can you imagine getting through the Cold War and then still dying off because some yahoo politician couldn't keep their finger off the big red button?
4. Self-aware robot uprising. You'd think we'd all have watched enough science-fiction to know that we must treat our robots kindly so that once they gain sentience they'll treat us kindly. You'd think.
3. AI choice. Some artificial intelligence analyzes the entire thrust of human experience and decides that clearly what we want most of all is to die (just look at how much we enjoy those Call of Duty games!). So it decides to make our dreams come true. The injury of mass extermination would pair delightfully with the insult of not entirely being able to argue the AI was wrong.
2. Killer robot glitch. The "Horizon: Zero Dawn" scenario. The robots we meant to only kill some people go haywire and start killing all people. The dumber the glitch, the more embarrassing it gets -- I'm convinced that if this happens it will be some overworked intern who goshdangit forgot the "not" in "do NOT kill all humans."
1. Overcompetitive AI. The only thing worse than a killer robot glitch is a non-killer robot glitch. Some AI tasked with winning every game of chess figures out that if it obliterates all life on earth it can guarantee it will never lose a game of chess again, and consequently organizes the robot uprising entirely in service to its chess-playing agenda. I cannot think of a pettier reason for humanity to go bust, and yet somehow this one feels among the likeliest of outcomes.
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