Ben Recht uses earthquake forecasting to question how much p(doom) numbers mean
ChuckDBrooks · x · 2026-09-15
In a live blog of his graduate seminar class, Berkeley professor Ben Recht uses earthquake forecasting to interrogate AI's p(doom) discourse. Seismologists don't claim earthquakes mean extinction, but they cause massive casualties—structurally similar to catastrophic AI risk, with the same twin questions: how do you quantify the odds, and what do you do afterward? Exact timing and location prediction on long horizons is impossible because Earth's stress dynamics defeat differential-equation models, unlike weather forecasting; the best you get are coarse statistical models built from fault-line history and exponential recurrence-time estimates. The core question: when experts assign precise numbers to low-probability catastrophes, how much real information do those numbers carry?
Related event: Earthquake forecasting as a reality check for p(doom), by Ben Recht(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Jensen Huang says '10% extinction' claims are made-up numbers and 'irresponsible' to publish — tomjaguarpaw · 2026-09-15
- AI safety is about control, not safety: critics accuse labs of using safety to curb competition — JHochderffer · 2026-09-15
- Scoble's newsletter asks: when AI makes the decision, who takes the blame? — Scobleizer · 2026-09-15
- Signull: AI safety comms are structurally indistinguishable from propaganda — signulll · 2026-09-15
- Two years after o1-preview, Greg Kamradt revisits his benchmark bet: AI timelines have shortened — burny_tech · 2026-09-15
- Andy Masley: AI safety debate ignores the real range of expert uncertainty — AndyMasley · 2026-09-15