Sandberg: experts in 1925 mistook ignorance about atomic energy for proof of difficulty
anderssandberg · x · 2026-11-07
Anders Sandberg notes that J.B.S. Haldane treated the lack of knowledge in 1925 as strong evidence that atomic energy would be very hard to achieve, rather than a reason to hedge — 20 years later, mushroom clouds were rising. The thread is a lesson in forecast epistemics: experts often misread temporary ignorance as proof of difficulty, a caution relevant to today's debates about AI capability frontiers.
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