AI Impacts survey critics flag vague wording, tiny effective sample and MIRI ties
DrTechlash · x · 2026-09-15
The new AI Impacts survey on AI extinction risk draws renewed methodological criticism: respondents assign probabilities to a bundled "extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment" outcome that media report as "extinction"; organizers themselves admit respondents aren't forecasting experts and framing effects are significant; the effective sample is 8% of 19,874 emails, with three question variants answered by subsets of only 744, 392 and 353 people; and the survey sits within Berkeley's MIRI, whose co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky advocates shutting AI down, with co-author David Krueger assigning 75% p(doom).
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