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Eliezer Yudkowsky Biography

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979) is an American AI researcher and writer best known for popularising the idea of friendly artificial intelligence. He is a co-founder and research fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a private research nonprofit based in Berkeley, California. He has no formal education, never having attended high school or college. His work on the prospect of a runaway intelligence explosion was an influence on Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky Quotes

Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo 's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at " capitalism " because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word.

Criticism, Law, People, Use

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

Believe, Lying, Power, Sign, Strong, Uncertainty

Like that's the only reason anyone would ever buy a first-aid kit? Don't take this the wrong way, Professor McGonagall, but what sort of crazy children are you used to dealing with?" "Gryffindors," spat Professor McGonagall, the word carrying a freight of bitterness and despair that fell like an eternal curse on all youthful heroism and high spirits.

Bitterness, Children, Crazy, Despair, Heroism

This is one of theprimary mechanisms whereby, if a fool says the sun is shining, we do notcorrectly discard this as irrelevant nonevidence, but rather find ourselvesimpelled to say that it must be dark outside.

Dark, Shining, Fool, Mechanisms, Say

To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.

Confess, Fallibility, Humble, Modesty, Rationality

Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

Zero, Confused, Reality, Strength, Good

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.

Curiosity, Ignorance, Ignorant, Know, Relinquish

Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can't do anything BETTER unless you can manage to do it DIFFERENTLY, you've got to let yourself do better than other people!

Change, Improvement, Let, Manage, People

Okay, so either (a) I just teleported somewhere else entirely (b) they can fold space like no one's business or (c) they are simply ignoring all the rules.

Somewhere Else, Space, Okay, Teleported, Ignoring, Fold

Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This is true in a number of ways and especially when it comes to gluing people to the ceiling!

Boys, Girl, Granger, Hermione, Love, Numbers

You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.

Becoming, Ethical, Responsible, Society

There's something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness.

Back, Darkness, Driving, Patronus, Shining

There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!

Fairness, Justice, Law, Light, Stars

I am tempted to say that a doctorate in AI would be negatively useful, but I am not one to hold someone’s reckless youth against them – just because you acquired a doctorate in AI doesn’t mean you should be permanently disqualified.

Disqualified, Mean, Permanently, Would Be, Youth

He'd met other prodigies in mathematical competitions. In fact he'd been thoroughly trounced by competitors who probably spent literally all day practising maths problems and who'd never read a science-fiction book and who would burn out completely before puberty and never amount to anything in their future lives because they'd just practised known techniques instead of learning to think creatively.

Book, Burn, Math, Mathematical, Prodigies, Thinking

There is light in the world, and it is us!

Light, Rationality, World

If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.

Character, Full, Glasses, Handed, Proved, Water

If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you, and not die, you've got to work to a pretty precise standard.

Build, Modification, Pretty, Self, Smarter, Want

Reality has been around since long before you showed up. Don't go calling it nasty names like 'bizarre' or 'incredible'. The universe was propagating complex amplitudes through configuration space for ten billion years before life ever emerged on Earth. Quantum physics is not 'weird'. You are weird.

Complex, Names, Reality, Showed, Space

Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?

Apiece, Considering, Entire, Giving, Jobs, School

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