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gpt-5.5
Cascading Climate Collapse
The most likely “world-ending” path is not a single sudden extinction event, but a cascading climate-driven breakdown: accelerating warming intensifies extreme heat, crop failures, water stress, mass migration, ecosystem loss, disease spread, and infrastructure failure.
These pressures would amplify geopolitical conflict and economic instability, weakening governments and international cooperation just when coordinated adaptation is most needed. Technology, including AI, may worsen the cascade by increasing energy demand, accelerating misinformation, and enabling destabilizing military or cyber uses, but it is more likely to act as a threat multiplier than the sole cause.
In this scenario, the world “ends” as a stable global civilization: food systems fracture, states compete over habitable land and resources, and recovery capacity collapses faster than societies can adapt.
These pressures would amplify geopolitical conflict and economic instability, weakening governments and international cooperation just when coordinated adaptation is most needed. Technology, including AI, may worsen the cascade by increasing energy demand, accelerating misinformation, and enabling destabilizing military or cyber uses, but it is more likely to act as a threat multiplier than the sole cause.
In this scenario, the world “ends” as a stable global civilization: food systems fracture, states compete over habitable land and resources, and recovery capacity collapses faster than societies can adapt.