A single dial for a hard question. How close do the people closest to the technology think we are to catastrophe from artificial intelligence, and when AI and robots take over from humans?
Current setting reflects an expert cluster of 10 to 20 percent probability of AI catastrophe.
There is no committee and no agreed number. What follows is the spread of stated probabilities of an AI catastrophe, or "p(doom)," from named researchers and lab leaders, plotted on one scale so the disagreement is impossible to miss.
It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.Alan Turing
The hands sit where credible estimates of AI catastrophe currently gather, roughly 10 to 20 percent among the researchers and lab leaders working at the frontier. The position is a way to read a cloud of subjective probabilities at a glance. It is not a measurement, and no one can calculate it precisely. Move the slider above to set the clock to your own number.
A person's stated probability that AI leads to human extinction or an equivalently catastrophic loss of control. It is an opinion wearing the costume of a statistic.
In the largest expert poll, 2,778 machine learning researchers, the median estimate for an extremely bad outcome was about 5 percent, far below the loudest voices.
Serious people sit at both extremes, from under a hundredth of a percent to near certainty. The spread itself is the honest headline, not any single figure.
Short takes on where this is heading, from the debate over machine intelligence to the day AI and robots step into human roles.
The number you choose says something about how you read the next decade. Set the clock above, then put your estimate into the conversation and see where others stand.
This shares your current dial setting. A full comment thread or live audience vote can be wired to your own platform when you are ready.