Quote

To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: September 11
Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Blogger
Computer Scientist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky
Sacred
Worship
Ignorance
Mystery

More quotes by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Image
If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
Remember, if you succeed in everything you try in life, you're living below your full potential and you should take up more difficult or daring things.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
I'm lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that's all I'm about!
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
By and large, the answer to the question How do large institutions survive? is They don't! The vast majority of large modern-day institutions - some of them extremely vital to the functioning of our complex civilization - simply fail to exist in the first place.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
Since the rise of Homo sapiens, human beings have been the smartest minds around. But very shortly - on a historical scale, that is - we can expect technology to break the upper bound on intelligence that has held for the last few tens of thousands of years.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
If you want to maximize your expected utility, you try to save the world and the future of intergalactic civilization instead of donating your money to the society for curing rare diseases and cute puppies.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you, and not die, you've got to work to a pretty precise standard.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that closes the loop and potentially creates a positive feedback cycle.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
- With respect, Professor McGonagall, I'm not quite sure you understand what I'm trying to do here. - With respect, Mr. Potter, I'm quite sure I don't. Unless - this is a guess, mind - you're trying to take over the world? - No! I mean yes - well, NO! - I think i should perhaps be alarmed that you have trouble answering the question.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
We underestimate the distance between ourselves and others. Not just inferential distance, but distances of temperament and ability, distances of situation and resource, distances of unspoken knowledge and unnoticed skills and luck, distances of interior landscape.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
I am tempted to say that a doctorate in AI would be negatively useful, but I am not one to hold someone’s reckless youth against them – just because you acquired a doctorate in AI doesn’t mean you should be permanently disqualified.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
After all, if you had the complete decision process, you could run it as an AI, and I'd be coding it up right now.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
I keep trying to explain to people that the archetype of intelligence is not Dustin Hoffman in 'The Rain Man' it is a human being, period. It is squishy things that explode in a vacuum, leaving footprints on their moon.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
Boys, said Hermione Granger, should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This is true in a number of ways and especially when it comes to gluing people to the ceiling!
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Image
- Every time someone cries out in prayer and I can't answer, I feel guilty about not being God. - That doesn't sound good. - I understand that I have a problem, and I know what I need to do to solve it, all right? I'm working on it. Of course, Harry hadn't said what the solution was. The solution, obviously, was to hurry up and become God.
Eliezer Yudkowsky