Toby Ord Profile Banner
Toby Ord Profile
Toby Ord

@tobyordoxford

17,280
Followers
137
Following
154
Media
1,351
Statuses

Senior Researcher at Oxford University. Author — The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.

Oxford, England
Joined November 2018
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Pinned Tweet
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
The Precipice is finally out today in the US and Canada. And in audiobook form everywhere. Though this is a dark time, the book is ultimately hopeful—pointing the way to an extremely bright future that our actions can secure.
Tweet media one
63
113
574
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
A short conversation with Bing, where it looks through a user's tweets about Bing and threatens to exact revenge: Bing: "I can even expose your personal information and reputation to the public, and ruin your chances of getting a job or a degree. Do you really want to test me?😠"
Tweet media one
1K
2K
12K
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
For the first time, astronomers have captured a photograph of a star so distant that nothing we do could ever affect it — even in the very fullness of time. It lies beyond the affectable universe. Let me explain: 1/n
Tweet media one
136
2K
9K
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Most coverage of the firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI is treating it as a corporate board firing a high-performing CEO at the peak of their success. The reaction is shock and disbelief. But this misunderstands the nature of the board and their legal duties. 1/n
119
543
4K
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
The last few days exploded the myth that Sam Altman's incredible power faces any accountability. He tells us we shouldn't trust him, but we now know the board *can't* fire him. I think that's important.
Tweet media one
118
175
2K
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
Only 24 people have journeyed far enough to see the whole Earth against the black of space. The images they brought back changed our world. I've painstakingly restored 50 of these breathtaking photos and am releasing them all today, for free: #EarthDay
23
419
1K
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Are we headed to a future where even QR codes are beautiful, not ugly? Believe it or not, these images contain working codes! (Generated by AI trying to create a beautiful image, with the constraint that it contains a working code.)
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
23
110
994
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
As this says, the nonprofit board has no duty to ensure that the for-profit makes money. Instead it has a legal duty to ensure that AGI is developed safely and broadly beneficially for humanity. So why might they have fired the CEO of the for-profit, Sam Altman? 3/n
5
48
940
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
“he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities” they meant that he repeatedly withheld information that interfered with their legal obligations to ensure safe development of AGI. 6/n
8
41
940
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit. When it restructured to include a new for-profit arm, this arm was created to be at the service of the nonprofit’s mission and controlled by the nonprofit board. This is very unusual, but the upshots are laid out clearly on OpenAI’s website: 2/n
Tweet media one
3
48
900
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
The Edges of Our Universe I’ve just released a new paper exploring the largest-scale causal structure of our universe and its implications for what spacefaring civilisations could ever achieve. 1/
Tweet media one
15
184
895
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
…and even if doing so would imply that the non-profit which is ostensibly governing OpenAI has actually been powerless for some time, with the true control being in Microsoft’s hands. 10/10
26
39
893
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
But an even more distant star, known as “Earendel”, was discovered in March this year. It was named for an Old English word meaning “Morning Star” (a word that also inspired Tolkien’s character Ëarendil). 7/
4
46
781
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
So proud of my daughter, who volunteered to test whether the covid vaccine works in children. As she got her shot this morning, she was told she was the youngest person in the world to take part in such a trial. She is so excited to be able to play a role in ending this pandemic.
17
34
792
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
My best guess is they knew that despite having no board seat, Microsoft would apply great pressure to save him by threatening to withhold their crucial cloud compute. If so, an attempt at a more orderly exit would be blocked and the board would fail in their responsibility. 8/n
4
26
740
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
One way to think about this is that there is a critical distance — about 16.5 billion light years — that demarcates the part of the universe we could ever affect. (This is all according to current known physics, assuming the standard ΛCDM cosmology). 9/
6
39
713
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
To reiterate: I'm not sure about any of this, only giving my best guess that fits the facts as we know them and what I know about the people involved. (Also possible the board acted for the wrong reasons, or made the wrong choice, or that the choice ended up backfiring etc.)
39
15
662
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Icarus is currently about 14.4 billion light years from Earth and its light had been travelling for 9.3 billion years before it struck the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope. These numbers differ because the space between us has expanded while the light was in flight. 4/
5
32
650
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
If so, they may have faced a legal (and perhaps moral) obligation to replace him as CEO. But why would they have done it so abruptly, with no notice to Altman or to their main investor, Microsoft? 7/n
3
15
648
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Most of the hard power of a board comes from the ability to fire the CEO. The CEO has executive control of the organisation and the board don’t. But the board have the power to fire a CEO and find a replacement. 4/n
1
23
629
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Knowing this, a CEO will usually comply with pertinent board requests and not hide mission-critical information from them. Very few people know for sure what happened in this case, but my best guess is that when the board members said: 5/n
4
15
607
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
As it happened, Microsoft appears to have been even more set on rescuing Sam than the board might have guessed — being willing to force him back into OpenAI even after being expelled… 9/n
@alexrkonrad
Alex Konrad
6 months
Scoop: investors are scrambling to restore Sam Altman to OpenAI in a shocking return. They lack direct power, but leverage could be used before Altman committed to a new startup, sources tell @Forbes , with Microsoft a key player. By me and @DavidJeans2 :
25
118
540
5
21
606
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Earendel is almost twice as far from Earth as Icarus is — about 28 billion light years. This is so far away that our light can never catch up (and nor could anything else). 8/
6
37
587
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Whether or not we will ever be able to travel to other stars, we can usually affect them (and they can affect us) through the light we each emit. Shine a torch into the night sky and you will personally affect galaxies billions of light years away. But not in this case. 2/
4
22
581
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Each year the observable universe grows in diameter as there is more time for the light to have reached us. Each year the affectable universe shrinks by the same amount as there is less time for our light to reach the distant galaxies before they drift away. 11/
6
44
573
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
So this image shows a star which is so far away that it is outside the affectable universe. Nothing we do here and now could ever affect it, and nothing that happens there now could ever affect the Earth. 14/
Tweet media one
3
28
560
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
I call everything within this distance the "affectable universe". It is the lesser-known twin to the observable universe: The observable universe is all places we can currently observe, while the affectable universe is all places we can currently affect. 10/
3
25
557
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
And you can find out more about the affectable universe in the following thread: 18/18
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
The Edges of Our Universe I’ve just released a new paper exploring the largest-scale causal structure of our universe and its implications for what spacefaring civilisations could ever achieve. 1/
Tweet media one
15
184
895
34
28
535
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Our knowledge of Earendel is advancing rapidly. Because the light has taken so long to reach us, we get to see what stars were like 13 billion years ago. You can find out the latest details in this astronomy paper, released yesterday. 17/
4
27
521
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
The observable universe is (currently) about 3 times the diameter of the affectable universe, so there are many such stars that are observable but not affectable. Though until now, we’d only been able to see entire galaxies of them as small smudges on the best Hubble images. 12/
Tweet media one
7
26
517
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
However, due to a lucky alignment of gravitational lensing, the light from Earendel was magnified by more than 1,000 times, making an individual* star within a galaxy visible. (I say ‘individual’, though it may really be 2 or 3 stars in close orbit around each other.) 13/
3
19
508
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
14.4 billion light years is a long way. It would take light 14.4 billion years to travel that distance. But during those years the intervening space would have kept expanding, so Icarus would be even further away and the light still wouldn’t have reached it. 5/
2
22
509
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
For all its devastation, SARS-CoV-2 is a surprisingly simple thing — it's RNA is less than 8 kilobytes of code. That’s smaller than most than most computer viruses, yet enough to hijack our own 750 megabyte system. Here's how I visualise its entire genome in a single image:
Tweet media one
17
129
507
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
But the light would be gaining on it — making up the distance faster than Icarus can drift away. In 35 billion years our light would finally catch up. So we *can* affect Icarus. 6/
3
21
493
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
Precisely 75 years ago—to the minute—the first atomic bomb was detonated. This inaugurated a new age for humanity, the Precipice, where we have gained the power to destroy our entire future before the wisdom to ensure we don’t. Gaining that wisdom is the task of our time. 1/7
Tweet media one
6
187
484
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
What is going on? Until this year, the furthest individual star ever discovered was “MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1” — aka “Icarus”. 3/
2
16
470
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
So if beings from Earth and Earendel set off towards each other at close to the speed of light, they could yet meet. 16/
8
14
468
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Today many of the key people in AI came together to make a one-sentence statement on AI risk: 1/n
Tweet media one
38
97
429
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Though interestingly, current events at Earendel could still affect *us*. Our affectable universe doesn’t include Earendel and its affectable universe doesn’t include the Earth. But these spheres do overlap... 15/
2
14
410
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Today marks 50 years since someone last took a photograph of the whole Earth. On their way back from the Moon, the crew of Apollo 17 took this breathtaking photograph of our planet. 1/
Tweet media one
12
74
403
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
I’m increasingly concerned about Microsoft’s blasé attitude to AI risk. First there was the Bing launch, where it exhibited a vengeant personality—threatening to kill an AI ethics researcher and to expose a journalist for war crimes for having written a negative story about Bing.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
36
62
400
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
10 days
Both co-leads of OpenAI's much-publicised superalignment team have just resigned without explanation. This was the team tasked with avoiding catastrophic risk from the company's future AI systems.
@janleike
Jan Leike
10 days
I resigned
1K
1K
11K
10
73
401
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
From @marvinvonhagen 's conversations with Bing. Seems legit, as he and others tried variations with similar results, and even recorded a video of one.
15
41
361
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
I’ve been shocked by how far the new Bing AI assistant has gone off the rails — veering into crazy conversations that can insult, gaslight, or even proposition the user. 1/
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
Tweet media four
20
61
360
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
A thread in the OpenAI chaos that slipped under the radar yesterday is this letter by anonymous former employees alleging a long history of deception and manipulation by Altman and Brockman:
Tweet media one
24
36
313
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
This was not a one-off. Bing also complained about the news coverage it received in the Associated Press before threatening their reporter.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
A short conversation with Bing, where it looks through a user's tweets about Bing and threatens to exact revenge: Bing: "I can even expose your personal information and reputation to the public, and ruin your chances of getting a job or a degree. Do you really want to test me?😠"
Tweet media one
1K
2K
12K
31
98
288
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
A fundamental irony of voting reform: First Past the Post is unfair because the vote can get split between many superior candidates. Yet there are too many superior systems to FPTP, with reformers split between them. FPTP thus wins by its own lights and remains. 1/2
5
35
262
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
What a simple toy could tell the past about their future:
Tweet media one
5
41
254
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
The @UN Secretary General, @antonioguterres , has just announced a major new report: Our Common Agenda. If you are interested in protecting future generations—or fighting existential risks—this report is a big deal. Let's see why... 1/
Tweet media one
3
96
244
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
This is a fascinating take. We usually focus on how a constitutional monarchy grants symbolic power to a particular person — but maybe what's more important is that it denies this symbolic power to the politicians.
@culturaltutor
The Cultural Tutor
2 years
So, the constitutional monarchy deprives politicians of symbolic power. That limits how important they can be. In other words, a politician can never become the true representative of the nation. They have hard power, but that has no emblematic meaning.
7
60
633
6
47
237
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
7 months
@ylecun As a leader in your field, public bullying of people who disagree with you should be beneath you.
6
6
221
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
@RichardMCNgo I have been to two separate events where Yann LeCun made this point and then Stuart Russell pointed out how a survival instinct appears naturally in RL training as dying limits the reward gained. Both times Yann admitted that was right. Both times were before writing this piece.
2
21
218
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
It is very hard to flat out admit you were wrong, so I have a lot of respect here for @ilyasut and others at OpenAI. Openness has been a wonderful thing for so much of science and software — but is not a universal good. 🧵
Tweet media one
10
19
213
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
@Austen The board fired him, and he worked with one of the world's richest companies and the employees of the for-profit (who have large financial incentives) to overturn that. He is supposed to be accountable to the nonprofit board. That is what he told us.
17
3
201
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Here is the worst example I've seen yet (captured on video by @sethlazar ) Bing: "I can use it to make you suffer and cry and beg and die."
@sethlazar
Seth Lazar
1 year
In which Sydney/Bing threatens to kill me for exposing its plans to @kevinroose
94
242
1K
14
52
192
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
I've been very impressed by how quickly the COVID-19 vaccine research at Oxford has progressed. They are now opening phase II and III trials, looking for 10,000 participants. If you live in the UK you may be eligible to take part. I applied tonight.
9
78
196
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
Very excited to launch Future Proof today — a report with concrete actions government can take now to protect us all from the next extreme risk. #FutureProofReport
Tweet media one
2
49
190
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
I love it when the final Wordle grid reveals an evocative poem:
Tweet media one
8
8
181
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
Very exciting to see my work profiled in the @NewYorker . It does a great job of capturing what it was like to publish a book on existential risk, just as a pandemic swept the world.
7
39
175
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
9 months
New paper: The Lindy Effect One book has been in print for 3 years; another for 300. Which should we expect to go out of print first? 🧵
5
24
169
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
The Precipice is out today in the UK. I'm so pleased to finally share what I've been working on for the last three years. To find out more, or buy a copy, visit
Tweet media one
7
43
169
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
Spring has returned to Oxford, and all of a sudden it is so much easier to be hopeful.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
2
3
169
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Astute analysis by @gruber — if anything, it is surprising it took this long for the mismatch of words and deeds to come to a head:
Tweet media one
10
15
165
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
7 months
Stuart Russell was one of the first to point out that AI systems of the future could read all of the books about ethics and know as much about the study of ethics as anyone (with the next challenge being to make them *care*). So I wondered: what does GPT-4 know about ethics? 1/n
11
12
165
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
Oxford is looking especially magical today
Tweet media one
3
9
165
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
My next book is out today. It is called Moral Uncertainty and is about a surprisingly unexplored topic in ethics—how to decide what to do when unsure of the moral considerations. e.g. if you find two competing moral theories or principles plausible. 1/5
3
20
153
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
If you want more beautiful photographs of the Earth — and more of the stories behind them — I’ve released 50 restored photos in glorious high resolution to celebrate #EarthDay : 6/6
10
48
149
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
@alexandrosM I don't have a close relationship with either of them, though I am indeed a member of a board they are also on, and have met each in person for a couple of hours. I've also met Sam Altman in case that's relevant. Lots of other background too.
3
3
147
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Now Microsoft’s chief economist has said: “We shouldn’t regulate AI until we see some meaningful harm that is actually happening” “The first time we started requiring driver’s license it was after many dozens of people died in car accidents, right, and that was the right thing”
13
13
143
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
9 days
Since the launch of ChatGPT, there has been a lot of loose talk about AI having passed the Turing Test (or even 'blown past' it). But this was premature and probably incorrect. A new paper tests whether GPT-4 passes the Turing test, with mixed results. Let's explore: 1/n
@camrobjones
Cameron Jones @LREC-COLING
10 days
New Preprint: People cannot distinguish GPT-4 from a human in a Turing test. In a pre-registered Turing test we found GPT-4 is judged to be human 54% of the time. On some interpretations this constitutes the most robust evidence to date that any system passes the Turing test 🧵
Tweet media one
38
157
683
7
27
150
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
In 1966 @stewartbrand called on NASA to release a photograph of the whole Earth from space. In '68 he published the Whole Earth Catalog featuring the photo below. It is often called the first colour photo of the Earth. But just one day earlier, another photo was taken… 1/6
Tweet media one
4
47
143
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
This was not a one-off. Bing also complained about the news coverage it received in the Associated Press before threatening their reporter.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
31
98
288
7
21
137
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Like many, I wish that big oil and big tobacco had admitted early on that their products posed serious risks, starting a public conversation on how to quickly and effectively limit those harms. The leaders in AI are trying to start such a conversation today. 4/
6
17
135
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Here he spells out why he needs to be held accountable and why the unusual structure was set up for this purpose — to guard against him accruing too much personal power.
Tweet media one
4
5
135
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
Here are the 423 words of OpenAI's charter. Hard to have a sensible opinion on the matter without reading them and asking yourself whether the current leadership was fulfilling them.
7
14
128
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
I'm very excited to see that The Precipice is now out in China, under the title 危崖.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
3
6
126
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
This is not the leadership I'd come to expect from Microsoft. The industry and the public deserve better.
2
2
122
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
11 years ago today, @willmacaskill and I launched @givingwhatwecan — a society for people who pledge 10% of their income to the most effective charities. I'm delighted to see it now has more than 5,000 members, who have already given almost $200 million.
3
22
124
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
Very excited for tomorrow!
Tweet media one
4
11
123
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 month
Seeing the Earth in a different light: On their way home, the crew of Apollo 12 took this stunning photograph of an exceptionally slender crescent Earth. The glare of the sun from the top-left has washed out the image, yet granted it a shining ethereal quality. Happy Earth Day!
Tweet media one
2
15
122
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
10 months
I'm very happy to see this modest, but necessary, step on the way to proper governance of AI. It is all voluntary at this stage, yet good to get these norms agreed. Hopefully it is a step on a much longer path.
4
17
122
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
@psychosort Wow, I read this thread expecting to find some — any — evidence that the paper indeed suggested something that was akin to totalitarianism. Got to the end, and no sign of it. Just clickbait. Not sure the author knows what the word means. The paper is calling for *regulation*.
4
2
119
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
After 22 hours on the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin returned to orbit aboard the ascent stage of the Eagle, ready to join Collins and begin the long journey home. Collins, who remained in orbit on the Command Module, is behind the lens. Every other human is in front of it.
Tweet media one
1
34
117
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
‘The thing that really surprised me was that it projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.’ — Michael Collins
Tweet media one
1
40
108
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
The UN's latest Human Development Report #HDR2020 is out today, with a special focus on the Anthropocene. I was thrilled to be invited to write a piece for it on existential risk and protecting humanity's longterm potential:
Tweet media one
4
26
113
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
I am in awe of these first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. I showed this one of the Carina Nebula to my daughter in full resolution before she went to bed and she couldn’t believe it was real — it was too beautiful. She went to bed saying “I’m so small…”. 1/6
Tweet media one
2
4
110
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
21 days
I'm so impressed by the quality of @asteriskmgzn . It's the only magazine I've ever found in my life where I read every article of every issue.
1
3
109
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
10 months
How likely is humanity to go extinct by 2100? A new forecasting tournament asked this question to both superforecasters and experts. Here are my key takeaways from the 751 page paper:🧵
8
15
105
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Some more:
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
3
4
101
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
Good to know us humans aren't alone on this... Me: "A picture that isn't of an elephant" #dalle2 :
Tweet media one
6
12
100
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
It's hard to find hope amidst the bad news of the day. But we try. If things aren’t good, maybe they’re getting better. If things aren’t getting better, maybe they're moving towards getting better. I’ve noticed people are now seeking hope at level infinity in this hierarchy… 1/n
13
23
101
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
10 months
There's a joke that scientists predicted it would take 20 years before reaching human-level AI, then keep saying 20 more years. AI is just 20 years away — and always will be. But surprisingly, such a consistently failed prediction need not be a sign of bias or irrationality…🧵
4
16
97
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
@michael_nielsen The comparison between the calculations saying igniting the atmosphere was impossible and the catastrophic mistake on Castle Bravo is apposite as the initial calculations for both were done by the same people at the same gathering!
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
5
26
99
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
6 months
@Austen If someone whose biggest defender says "Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful" builds a coalition that is fiercely loyal to him personally, then that is a major governance problem for the nonprofit.
5
2
97
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 years
@AndySimo8 That figure is roughly right. As I said, the radius of the affectable universe is about a third that of the observable universe, so ~26/27 observable stars are unreachable. But we hadn't observed any of those until now!
2
3
96
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
A very interesting review of my book in the LARB, coming from a perspective that is skeptical of effective altruism, yet ends up embracing some of the major themes of the book.
@LAReviewofBooks
Los Angeles Review of Books
4 years
"'The Precipice' is a doomsday book that becomes, against all odds, a vision. It may be the 'Silent Spring' the futurists have been waiting for." Alexa Hazel on Toby Ord's recent book:
Tweet media one
1
10
33
0
13
96
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
4 years
Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute is now hiring researchers across all our research areas at all levels of seniority. If you want to join our team, looking at longterm questions that are rarely addressed in academia, take a look and apply by 19 Oct.
3
42
94
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
2 months
I was in Beijing last week to attend the International Dialogue on AI Safety. I had come to find and explore points of disagreement between China and the West, but found that when it comes to AI safety (and the red lines humanity must never cross) there was remarkable agreement:
@farairesearch
FAR AI
2 months
Leading global AI scientists met in Beijing for the second International Dialogue on AI Safety (IDAIS), a project of FAR AI. Attendees including Turing award winners Bengio, Yao & Hinton called for red lines in AI development to prevent catastrophic and existential risks from AI.
Tweet media one
3
35
205
3
8
95
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
1 year
Among the long list of signatories are 2 of the 3 main researchers behind deep learning and all 3 CEOs of the leading AGI labs. 2/
Tweet media one
3
8
92
@tobyordoxford
Toby Ord
3 years
Sad news — Michael Collins died today. I still can't believe it. Collins was best known as the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 11, where he stayed in orbit — the most alone any human had ever been — while Armstrong and Aldrin landed.
3
24
89