Eliezer Yudkowsky

responsible ethical ethics moral society

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

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

democracy effective government poetry victims complicit

“I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

try hurt stuck

“Trying and getting hurt can't possibly be worse for you than being... stuck.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

improvement change better differently

“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!”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

AI artificial intelligence danger people conclude understand

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

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

AI hate love atoms

“The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

criticise optimise

“If you can't criticise, you can't optimise.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

evil good name

“Evil done in the name of good. Evil done in the name of evil. Which is worse?”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

deadlier hate flow unlimited indifference

“What is deadlier than hate, and flows without limit?

Indifference.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

beginning unusual happen

“Since the beginning

not one unusual thing

has ever happened.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

Law mad science

"Moore's Law of Mad Science: Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

succeed below potential difficult daring

"Remember, if you succeed in everything you try in life, you're living below your full potential and you should take up more difficult or daring things."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

justice law nature fairness universe evil good

"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!"

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

strength theory allow prohibit explanation zero knowledge

"The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

surprise fact model credit

"There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

reality bizarre incredible universe propagate quantum weird

"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."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

triple ultra forbidden criticism violence

"It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever."

― Eliezer Yudkowsky

intelligence technology AI improve loop feedback

"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

rationality emotionfeeling model reality

“A popular belief about “rationality” is that rationality opposes all emotion—that all our sadness and all our joy are automatically anti-logical by virtue of being feelings. Yet strangely enough, I can’t find any theorem of probability theory which proves that I should appear ice-cold and expressionless. So is rationality orthogonal to feeling? No; our emotions arise from our models of reality. If I believe that my dead brother has been discovered alive, I will be happy; if I wake up and realize it was a dream, I will be sad. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” My dreaming self’s happiness was opposed by truth. My sadness on waking is rational; there is no truth which destroys it.”

― Eliezer Yudkowsky