Researchers argue p(doom) launders evidence-free fears through pseudo-quantification
RexDouglass · x · 2026-09-18
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor's two-year-old deconstruction of p(doom) is recirculating, with the authors saying it remains fully relevant.
- AI existential-risk probability forecasts are too unreliable to inform policy and are highly misleading
- p(doom)'s primary function is to launder vague, evidence-free intuitions behind a facade of quantification
- Itaisher highlights the odd laundering chain: the number was floated by Anthropic employees without public justification, then picked up by mathematicians and attributed to their judgment
- An 80% probability of aliens landing in a decade illustrates the point: probabilities carry no authority without a grounded method
A systematic epistemic critique of the x-risk narrative in AI safety circles.
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