Talk:P(doom)

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I came up with the "p(doom)" term - in 2009

As for "originating as an inside joke among AI researchers" - I came up with the term - as far as anyone can tell. I posted about it many times on LessWrong - which still has the posts archived. I was not an AI researcher. For the story, see the Roose, Kevin (2023-12-06) NYT article already linked as a reference in the article. TylerTim (talk) 02:54, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a thread where I tell my story on Twitter/X: https://x.com/tim_tyler/status/1665571547111649286 TylerTim (talk) 02:56, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a link to a relevant page on my <cough> machine intelligence web site: https://matchingpennies.com/pdoom/ TylerTim (talk) 03:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, seems correct. LessWrong search returns your comments as being 8 years ago, I reckon that's due to the revival code having it indexed the comments then. Not sure that WP citing guidelines can point to LW comments since they're not WP:RS, but the original article mentions you. Niplav (talk) 15:33, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nate Silver's p(doom) is 5-10%

Nate Silver estimates p(doom) as 5-10% here: https://www.natesilver.net/p/its-time-to-come-to-grips-with-ai

Perhaps a regular contributor can add this to the list of prominent figure's p(doom) estimates. 71.161.118.179 (talk) 02:30, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Geoffrey Hinton

In a recent interview with CBS he stated that he agrees with Elon Musk in that there's a 10-20% chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvAeKSBTD8c?t=138 (at 2:18 if the timestanp doesn't work) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.5.201.152 (talk) 11:06, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, Hinton's personal probability was somewhere above 50%.

He estimated that the average probability of AI researchers was somewhere in the realm of 10%. FavourNSpice (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possible addition to popular culture

Hi all, I noticed the article doesn’t currently include fictional or cultural portrayals of the P(doom) concept. Would it be appropriate to mention the 2025 speculative novel P(doom): Scales of Survival by Marco Sors? The book explores a world after an AI-driven takeover where humanity undergoes extreme adaptive transformations due to technological and environmental collapse, echoing themes of AI alignment failure and existential risk.

Not sure it meets notability thresholds yet, but I wanted to raise it for consideration. Thanks! 2001:B07:A9A:4E3A:5978:D976:7D1A:6153 (talk) 17:29, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“>0%” = “50%”?

I know this is kinda splitting hairs but I think saying “more than zero percent” is justifiably NOT sorted under a 50% sort value. I think there's real cause to assert that when someone says “more than zero percent” they have a weight curve that WAY more heavily weights 1% than 99%.

I think Hassibis should be sorted at least under something like 25%, instead of 50%.

2600:1702:6B11:7C40:CC77:6B39:A54B:4E38 (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sutton, Crowley

I don't think Sutton should be in this table. As far as I know, he hasn't explicitly given a P(doom). The "0%" appears to be inferred from his belief that AI replacing humans wouldn't be that bad. But even if we accept this framing and don't count human extinction as "doom", there may still be other kinds of doom that he considers plausible. This entry looks like original synthesis (WP:SYNTH).

Paul Crowley may also not be sufficiently notable to be listed in this table. Alenoach (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possible expansion of public p(doom) estimates

The article currently mentions a number of individual p(doom) estimates from prominent AI researchers and commentators.

Would it be useful to add a sourced overview of publicly stated p(doom) estimates from notable figures such as Geoffrey Hinton, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Paul Christiano, Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun, and others?

A structured summary might help readers understand the range of views while keeping the article neutral and well sourced.

I'm not proposing any particular source here, only wondering whether such a section would improve the article. ~2026-33114-64 (talk) 10:11, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

All of the people you named and more are included in the table already. Is what you are suggesting basically a prose summary of the table? Or, how are you imagining it? -- irn (talk) 01:10, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]