Talk:Eliezer Yudkowsky

message: So he's referenced in three books and seven articles (which I haven't read), founded the SIAI, and his primary research interest is an existential threat to humanity — that is, if he is correct (and a number of serious people think he may be) humanity is in danger of extinction from the threat he is studying, and within the next few decades, too.  And he's one of the leaders in raising interest in this particular threat.  It seems to me that he meets the primary notability criterion and is nearing the "creative professionals" secondary criterion.  Is this not clear from the contents of the article?  How did it end up with a "may not meet general notability guidelines" tag on it? Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 12:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention dozens of references in each of Google News/Scholar/Books. I'm removing the  tag. the skomorokh 14:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability questions? 

message: In this podcast , Eliezer talks about a book on rationality that he's writing and intending to publish. I was hoping to add it to the article but can't find a reference to it anywhere else. Does anyone have another source for this? —Henry Stanley (talk) 15:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Or is this  it? —Henry Stanley (talk) 15:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

text: Evercat (talk) 16:01, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yudkowsky's upcoming book 

message: The links to the TDT document, FAI etc. look ugly being in the body - can we just mention them there, and have a 'publications' section or something? Larklight (talk) 15:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems reasonable to me; as with most WP things, if you want to do it, do it. --Gwern  (contribs) 15:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inline links 

message: Review: http://web.archive.org/web/20090211145423/http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/P07rev_02.htm#400
 "Yudkowski Returns! reviewed by Robert Weinstein"
Theater info: http://www.theatermania.com/Off-Off-Broadway/shows/the-pretentious-festival_133057
Yudkoswki Returns! (The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Dr. Eliezer Yudkowski)
Written and Directed by Bob Saietta
In a seemingly deserted island, Dr. Eliezer Yudkowski and his artificial intelligence drones and cohorts wage a war to keep their circular narrative from ending. Their only weapon? The hope that humanity can finally evolve. (90 min)
Tue 6/19 7pm, @ Sat 6/30 @ 8:45pm, Sun 7/1 @ 1pm, Sun 7/1 @ 7pm
Yudkowsky's reaction: http://www.sl4.org/archive/0707/16399.html --Gwern  (contribs) 23:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Play 

message: --Davidcpearce (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Although Springer is mainly an academic publisher, the "Singularity Hypotheses" volume is part of "The Frontiers Collection" series aimed at non-expert audiences, it's not an academic journal for primary publication of research papaers. This kind of "special issue" publications often have less strict editorial policies than research journals.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.114.88.141 (talk) 13:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

text: I disagree: Dawkins had a chair there and he hasn't really contributed to his field since the 80s or 90s, barring one time in 2003 where he came out of the woodwork to defend his challenged hypothesis. Inanygivenhole (talk) 01:19, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

text: The point is not whether there exist some academics that have expressed a positive opinion of him and his work, or even collaborated with him. The point is that his work is published outside or at the margin of the academic publishing system and has so far failed to generate significant discussion in this system (peer-reviewed research papers and conferences). Also note that Scott Aaronson and John Baez, while notable in their own fields, are not AI researchers. Neither is Nick Bostrom, who is a professional philosopher in the same "existential risk" business of Yudkowsky.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.114.88.193 (talk) 17:01, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on Article 

message: This article is using primary self-published sources from Yudkowsky's own website, and sources from possibly-unreliable WP:SPS blogs. This material should be cut if it cannot be referenced to stronger sources. --McGeddon (talk) 10:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: We're not worried about "prestigiousness", we're worried about verfiability and notability. All citations must be within policy, especially because this is a BLP. The entry is first and foremost supposed to cover the things that Yudkowsky is known for, not (for example) his SAT scores. Inanygivenhole (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

text: I also put the infobox back (looks like it was hastily removed in a revert war, please be more careful in the future), cleaned up some of the prose, and combined the references I noted above. What's left now is to find citations and non-primary sources (especially on his fanfiction, I think that paragraph would do well to not cite mostly blogs). We should also bundle the Brin sources if we end up keeping them. While primary sources are usually acceptable for citing claims about oneself that aren't contentious, non-primary sources are needed in part to demonstrate that the information is worthy of note. For example, in the infobox, while we can say that he works with friendly AI, we cannot say that he is known for it without an independent, reliable source or two saying as much. However, his fanfiction is rather well-known, and we have citations that show this. The "influences" section of the infobox can be cited by a personal statement, preferably on a mailing list or quoted by a reliable source (not goodreads). Oh, and there's a lot of dead links that need fixing. Inanygivenhole (talk) 00:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

text: As for criticism of Yudkowsky, I do know that he gets a decent amount of heat for his isolation from the academic community. He has a reputation for rarely going through the proper channels (including peer-review) and his ideas are not taken very seriously by most of the academic community, perhaps because of this. It does seem like something that may be worthy of mention, but good sources on this are hard to find in part because he is pretty isolated from the academic community. One last note: it's perfectly fine to have biased or even "venomous" sources in a criticism section (indeed, at times such a thing is unavoidable, e.g., the academic slapfights on Jacques Derrida), so long as they meet the rules for sources. I'm not sure if the Bond link meets the citation guidelines, I'll have to look into it. I suspect that it does not. Inanygivenhole (talk) 00:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Edit: It looks like there's some decent sources that we may be able to incorporate into a criticism section at Friendly AI. Inanygivenhole (talk) 00:27, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think WP:PARITY applies here.  If someone is not taken seriously by the academic community, you are permitted to use non-academic sources as sources for criticism. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ken, it's worth stressing that a minority of the academic community - including intellectual heavyweights like Nick Bostrom, Scott Aaronson, John Baez (cf. http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/this-weeks-finds-week-311/ ) - take Eliezer's work very seriously indeed. The IJ Good / Yudkowsky conception of an Intelligence Explosion deserves to be critiqued (IMO it's mistaken). The deleted Bond link was a poor substitute. --Davidcpearce (talk) 22:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that WP:PARITY still applies here. Very few academics even acknowledge Yudkowsky's work, and those who do rarely, if ever, address his work in an academic setting. Inanygivenhole (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing problem templates 

message: I put it in here, it was taken out here. Editor cited "Per WP:ELNO, and more importantly, WP:ELBLP this is inappropriate." Admittedly, I gave them a cursory look, but I don't see where it violates either. RW is stable and the article trashes his ideas rather than him.Civic Cat (talk) 19:54, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Article on RW in the Esperanto Wikipedia (for what it's worth).Civic Cat (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

text: I am going to remove it. I know from bitter experience that BLPs on RW can be full of lies. It used to have one on me. Dougweller (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there lies in the article?Civic Cat (talk) 18:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I'm aware, the precedent is that RW is not considered a reliable source. Inanygivenhole (talk) 05:15, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: RW link

message: The SAT scores listed on this page are based on sources that cite Yudkowsky himself as the source of the scores.  Given the conflict of interest, should we repeat such a claim as fact without making the source transparent?  Further, are SAT scores appropriate at all in a biography? 216.3.101.62 (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1410 claim comes from the SL4 mailing list  owned and moderated by Eliezer Yudkowsky. The actual link is . I've edited the statement to make this clear. And this is probably the source for the 1600. Dougweller (talk) 08:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

text: If we can locate a secondary source I believe that the SAT score for Yudkowsky's biography is relevant. This is because the bio has a large focus on his studies and academic achievements. Fraulein451 (talk) 06:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Find another (non-affiliated) source. Grognard 123chess456 (talk) 15:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

text: What expertise does an econ prof have in determining a claimed SAT score is accurate? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not the main point here, but doesn't his title lend him some credibility? Anyway, I am tired of commenting on this and am not going to do so further. But I thought the info was quite important. 69.124.52.215 (talk) 13:32, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  SAT Score Request for Comment 

message: I had added the following to the article:
A selection of his blogposts is set to be released as an ebook in mid-march 2015 by the Machine Intelligence Research InstituteHelp us Optimize the Contents of the Sequences eBook by "lukeprog" (i.e. Luke Muehlhauser, the director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute) in lesswrong.com's discussion section, and will be released as six printbooks at a future date."Announcement: The Sequences eBook will be released in mid-March" by "RobbBB" (i.e. Robert Bensinger from the Machine Intelligence Research Institute) in the lesswrong.com discussion section
But somebody thinks this is "promotional spam", and has removed it, as the same person did with an earlier version of that paragraph I had inserted previously. I don't understand why. There's also going to be an audiobook version, Eliezer Yudkowsky has helped making the book (see this example), and if I recall correctly he has even written some kind of foreword specifically for the book.
--Distelfinck (talk) 23:45, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: We are not here to promote Yudkowsky's upcoming products. WP:CRYSTAL / WP:NOTADVERT / WP:SPS. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  His blogposts called "The Less Wrong Sequences" are already notable (there's lots of articles mentioning them, and a goodreads.com page on them), and are mentioned in the article. The book (and its audiobook version) is simply another medium in which a selection of the blogposts are published. --Distelfinck (talk) 16:26, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Upcoming book " Rationality: From AI to Zombies" 

message: Does Wikipedia allow this? Because this whole article reeks of self promotion.Mad hardy (talk) 17:09, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Eliezer Yudkowsky has a Wikipedia account, and his contributions to this article are already known, as indicated at the top of this Talk page. If you care to look through them (there's not many), his contributions have consisted of removing factual mistakes, cleaning up the article (i.e. removing big chunks of low-quality content), and having discussions on the Talk page. He did not make the article, nor does he actively maintain it.https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Eliezer_Yudkowsky&diff=prev&oldid=24696369https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/EliezerYudkowsky Yudkowsky's notability has been discussed in the past, and I do not believe a consensus to delete was reached then. Do you believe he has become less notable since then, or the article's quality gone down? Mechordeus (talk) 04:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Blatant publicity of a person with no academic credentials, only opinions and claims. Cross-links to articles promoting his other involvements in Wikipedia articles (which read in a similar style) and his own opinion-based web sites.  Delving deeper reveals crankiness similar to that of flat-Earthers. 86.139.218.163 (talk) 09:06, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self promotion? 

message: There needs to be a controversy section added to the page as he has faced many of them with numerous professional Ai readers expressing views that he isn't as credible as he claims to be. These are missing from the page and should be added. Also much of the page is a huge jargon jump that should be rephrased in a more understandable manner Zubin12 (talk) 07:27, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that you've moved ahead with your proposed changes. Sections labeled "Controversy" are deprecated in favor of integrating the information into existing sections where appropriate. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 00:36, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

text: I note that you seem to be changing spelling to British English in some cases. Some of your additions appear to be unsourced. I think this needs more discussion. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 00:40, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

text: The article in the current state is mostly jargon-filled summaries of various papers written by Yudowsky, there isn't any place for the integration of the controversies into the existing page.Zubin12 (talk) 01:17, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  If I saw my clearly to the best way to improve the many problems with this article, I'd try to do them. But I don't. American English vs British English is something that should not be controversial here. Providing sources for the controversy, i.e. the response from someone objecting to Yudkowsky is important, you can't just cite the Yudkowsky comment that started the controversy. Tempests on the LessWrong blog may not rise to the level of being noteworthy. Adding nonsense section titles is disruptive. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 03:04, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I apolgize if i sounded too defensive about my contribution and i'll try and add proper citations to somebody objecting to the statment soon.
His recent column in Time where he proposed a full moratorium on new large AI training runs is more than constroversial as well, and I think it should be mentioned in the article. Finstergeist (talk) 20:50, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy section 

message: Based on a facebook post of his, I don't think he is married anymore: https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10156307811769228
Jrincayc (talk) 12:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Any RS coverage? - David Gerard (talk) 16:06, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Pretty sure a facebook post by the person in question is a reliable source for this kind of information  Zubin12 (talk) 01:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Either way, it is not notable. Since there is no good source to support including his marriage (AFAIK) there is no reason to include the divorce.K.Bog 20:10, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  What do you need a source for to support notability of having been married? We include marriages to non-notable people in other people's bios, so we can include it here too, we are allowed to do that --Distelfinck (talk) 16:40, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:   I think that a secondary source is required to overrule the presumption in favor of privacy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy, in particular "people who are relatively unknown"). Even the personal website being used as a source by the article doesn't say anything about a marriage as far as I can see. Yes, there's a public FB post, but that's not good enough for Wikipedia, I think it is standard practice to only include this sort of thing if there is a secondary source. Just because some marriages are notable enough for Wikipedia doesn't mean that all of them are. K.Bog 03:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current status of marriage 

message: This section seems too short to be worth including. Thoughts on deleting it? User:Zhoulikan
I deleted the section myself. The summary in the edit history that accompanied its addition showed a clear lack of NPOV and said information was almost wholly irrelevant. 2601:204:D500:ADE0:246D:FE8F:99D6:71AD (talk) 06:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early life 

message: This is a biography, not a resume. Why do we have an academic publications section here? --Molochmeditates (talk) 03:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Selected Academic Works, similar to the Hawking article seems like a better solution --Molochmeditates (talk) 14:29, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why do we have an academic publications section? 

message: This article desperately needs IPA. 202.138.17.37 (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Would someone like to take a stab at it? Here is Eliezer Yudkowsky being introduced  --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 12:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. — SilverLocust (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: Should his middle name really be "Shlomo"? The edit  that introduced that referenced a message  he wrote at 14 years old. This is however the Hebrew version of "Solomon", and in later messages he refers to himself as the English version instead, e.g: here  and here .
2001:9B1:26FC:7C00:0:C0:FF:EE (talk) 09:15, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I have addressed this by changing the first sentence to Eliezer S. Yudkowsky and putting a footnote in the Infobox's birth name entry. I will presume that the older preference for Shlomo was the birth name. SilverLocust (talk) 02:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle Name 

message: The redirect The Yud has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.   Jay 💬 14:49, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  <strike>"[[:The Yud]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]</strike>