Resolution criteria

This market resolves to YES if, at any point before January 1, 2400 (UTC), the species Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) becomes extinct or functionally extinct. It resolves to NO if Homo sapiens remains extant on January 1, 2400.

• Definition of Extinction: The total global (and extraterrestrial, if applicable) population of living Homo sapiens falls to zero, or fewer than 10 individuals remain alive, rendering the species functionally extinct.

• The Paradox Rule: In the event of actual extinction, there will be no human traders, market creators, or operational servers to resolve this market. For the purpose of valid probability estimation and conditional markets, the ground truth of the event determines the correct resolution (YES if extinct, NO if not).

• Proxy Resolution: If a consensus of major scientific organizations (such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature or successor global scientific bodies) officially declares Homo sapiens extinct or functionally extinct, this market will resolve to YES.

• Speciation & Digitization: If Homo sapiens is entirely succeeded by evolutionary descendants classified as a distinct species (with no biological Homo sapiens remaining), or if humanity transitions entirely to digital or non-biological forms of intelligence with zero biological Homo sapiens surviving, this will resolve to YES.

Background

Existential risk researchers analyze various pathways to human extinction, including nuclear war, runaway climate change, engineered pandemics, and artificial superintelligence. The probability of extinction over long horizons is a subject of debate. In long-range forecasting tournaments, superforecasters typically estimate the probability of human extinction by 2100 to be around 1%, while domain experts often estimate significantly higher risks (ranging from 5% to over 20%). Extending the timeline to the year 2400 compounds these risks over multiple centuries of technological development and potential existential bottlenecks.