Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

A scientist worthy of a lab coat should be able to make original discoveries while wearing a clown suit, or give a lecture in a high squeaky voice from inhaling helium. It is written nowhere in the math of probability theory that one may have no fun.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 'truthization.' There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence - in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement - wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

The obvious choice isn't always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don't stop looking as soon I find an obvious answer, but if I go on looking, and the obvious-seeming answer still seems obvious, I don't feel guilty about keeping it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

If I could create a world where people lived forever, or at the very least a few billion years, I would do so. I don't think humanity will always be stuck in the awkward stage we now occupy, when we are smart enough to create enormous problems for ourselves, but not quite smart enough to solve them.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

The human species was not born into a market economy. Bees won't sell you honey if you offer them an electronic funds transfer. The human species imagined money into existence, and it exists - for us, not mice or wasps - because we go on believing in it.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that closes the loop and potentially creates a positive feedback cycle.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

I don't care where I live, so long as there's a roof to keep the rain off my books, and high-speed Internet access.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Since the rise of Homo sapiens, human beings have been the smartest minds around. But very shortly - on a historical scale, that is - we can expect technology to break the upper bound on intelligence that has held for the last few tens of thousands of years.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

If our extinction proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realization, the doers of the deed will likely be quite taken aback on realizing that they have actually destroyed the world. Therefore I suggest that if the Earth is destroyed, it will probably be by mistake.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

The systematic experimental study of reproducible errors of human reasoning, and what these errors reveal about underlying mental processes, is known as the heuristics and biases program in cognitive psychology. This program has made discoveries highly relevant to assessors of global catastrophic risks.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

An anthropologist will not excitedly report of a newly discovered tribe: 'They eat food! They breathe air! They use tools! They tell each other stories!' We humans forget how alike we are, living in a world that only reminds us of our differences.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

My successes already accomplished have mostly been taking existing science and getting people to apply it in their everyday lives.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow was the Final Dawn, the last sunrise before the Earth and Sun are reshaped into computing elements.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can.