Robin Hanson

[[File:Robin Hanson in a field 2.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Robin Hanson in 2011]]
{{LessWrong}}
''Not to be confused with {{wpl|Robert Hansen}}, despite their [[Misogyny|belief systems]] and [[Sociopath|neurodivergences]] being almost as similar as their names.''

'''Robin Hanson''' {{lived|1959}} is an associate professor of [[economics]] at [[George Mason University]].

He originated the term 'the Great Filter' and the concept of {{wpl|futarchy||,}} and is a big proponent of prediction markets.

He is a close associate of [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], who formerly co-blogged with Hanson on Hanson's blog, [http://www.overcomingbias.com/ Overcoming Bias], before starting [[LessWrong]]. Hanson disagrees with Yudkowsky's idea of an "AI-foom [[Singularity]]", and has debated him on the idea.<ref>[https://intelligence.org/ai-foom-debate/ The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate eBook], Machine Intelligence Research Institute.</ref> Instead, Hanson promotes his own scenario which is arguably more implausible. He was also a research associate at Nick Bostrom's [[Effective altruism|longtermist]] Future of Humanity Institute from 2016 to 2022.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160111095806/https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/team/robin-hanson/ Robin Hanson, Research Associate] ''Future of Humanity Institute'' (archived from January 11, 2016)</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20220124185502/https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/team/robin-hanson/ Robin Hanson, Research Associate] ''Future of Humanity Institute'' (archived from January 24, 2022).</ref><ref>[https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/ Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic: Whatever we may "owe the future," it isn't a bizarre and dangerous ideology fueled by eugenics and capitalism] by Émile P. Torres (August 20, 2022 12:00PM EDT) ''Salon''.</ref>

==The Age of Em==
{{cquote|[A]fter reading ''Age of Em'' I feel like Robin Hanson would be able to come up with some super-solution even the [[psychopath]]s can’t think of… Everything about labor relations in ''Age of Em'' is like this.|||[[Scott Alexander]]'s review of ''The Age of Em''<ref>[http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/28/book-review-age-of-em/ Book Review: Age of Em], Scott Alexander.</ref>}}

In a nutshell, it goes like this: Before any ''de novo'' [[AI]] is ever built, [[human]] [[brains]] are scanned and uploaded to [[computer]]s, becoming [[Mind uploading|mind emulations]], or 'ems' for short. These ems, like software, can copy themselves, run in parallel as much as needed, and run much faster than humans, perhaps a thousand times as fast. As a result, they outcompete humans in the labor market. Additionally, ems who are willing to copy themselves many times and work for lower wages, longer hours, and in worse conditions will make more copies of themselves, and come to dominate the population, than ems who 
want to actually enjoy life
 are more demanding, as they fill every possible niche that opens up in the economy. Regular humans live off their investments in the em economy and enjoy fantastic rates of return, since the economy now doubles in size every month. The ems, meanwhile, work up to 12 hours every day, just for bare subsistence wages, and have to be willing to allow temporary copies of themselves to be split off and later 
murdered
 ended when they are no longer needed. The ems are okay with all this since only the most long-suffering ones reproduced so much and took over the economy.<ref name="Hanson 1994">[http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/uploads.html If Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn], 1994, Robin Hanson.</ref><ref>''The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth'', by Robin Hanson. (2016) Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198817827.</ref> This is not a dystopian hellscape, but actually a desirable future, according to Hanson.<ref name="Hanson 1994"/><ref name="Hanson-Hughes">[https://www.jetpress.org/v16/hanson.html The Hanson-Hughes Debate on "The Crack of a Future Dawn"], Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.</ref>

===Problems===
Hanson appears to be alone in thinking this is a good future. Part of the problem appears to be that he thinks that 'potential people' have the same rights as actual people do; that is, that nonexistent people's 'right to exist' supersedes the rights of actual people to prevent overpopulation.<ref name="Hanson-Hughes"/> Another part appears to be the [[libertarian]] failure to distinguish between [[liberty]] and freedom&nbsp;— in such a world, the ems have liberty, but no freedom, due to their economic circumstances preventing them from having freedom to do things other than work, being [[slaves]] in all but name. It is evident that any future in which most people are trapped in [[poverty]] and must spend most of their short lives working for subsistence is a major loss compared to a world where people have the freedom to enjoy a wide variety of what life has to offer.

Thankfully, it seems very unlikely that Hanson's scenario will come to pass. Even given his starting assumptions of ultra-cheap computing and uploading coming first, there are clear problems.

Such an explosive economic growth rate, which is what causes the places with no em labor regulations to quickly outcompete those that do have them, has been criticized by fellow-GMU economist Bryan Caplan.<ref>[https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/06/whats_wrong_in.html What's Wrong in Robin Hanson's The Age of Em], Bryan Caplan.</ref> Indeed, it is not clear what the ems are producing that doubles so quickly, other than more copies of themselves, or what they are actually working at for 12 hours per subjective high-speed day.

For selection effects to work, the traits to be selected for have to exist first. It seems plausible that ''no'' human minds exist that are both sane enough to do useful work and would be willing to copy themselves so much that they have to put up with the conditions that are [[Hypothesis|hypothesized]].

It also seems quite likely that human and/or early em society would institute whatever regulations, [[taxes]], redistribution, and so forth were necessary to prevent this kind of [[Thomas Malthus|Malthusian]] [[overpopulation]]. Humans are very likely to empathize with the ems, much as we do when watching ''Westworld'' or ''Black Mirror'', and so they will, by and large, want to prevent some of them from over-copying themselves and spoiling things for everyone. Humans have enormous per-capita wealth in the scenario, so they will have the financial means to achieve any goals they have. Early em society, before the runaway copying, would have the same goals, because of having values very similar to those of humans.

Primarily, though, the problems with the em scenario are foundational. As a general historical principle, human inventions draw inspiration from [[biology]], but do not copy it directly. Airplanes' wings are aerodynamic like [[birds]]' wings, but they don't flap or hatch from eggs. [[Automobile]]s don't have legs or eat hay for power. Further study of the human brain will likely give ideas to the field of AI, as it already has, but achieving AI by 'running a brain in a computer' contradicts all historical precedent. As per the previous examples, slavishly copying biology is probably very inefficient and impractical.

There is strong economic incentive for the ''de novo'' AI route as well. It would be necessary to upload animals before uploading a human, but such ventures would be extremely costly and bring no economic benefit. AI, by contrast, is almost always economically valuable, from basic software on up to AI(s) that can do any job a human can do. Economics would reward AI development over mind uploading. AI are also going to be much cheaper to run than a human mind, since there is no need for simulating [[sleep]], downtime, a virtual body, [[biochemistry]], and so forth. Such AI, unlike uploads, are also going to be free of associated [[ethical]] issues.<ref>[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html Three Arguments Against the Singularity], Charlie Stross.</ref>

The extra efficiency of ''de novo'' AI is going to be especially needed due to that bane of futurists, the imminent end of [[Moore's Law]]. When [[quantum]] effects limit how many more components can be crammed on a computer chip, the price of chip performance should stop falling and level out. Since it would take a vast supercomputer to run any simulated human brain, they would not be able to outcompete even human labor.

''All of this'' is assuming that [[Mind uploading|uploading a human mind]] is even possible in principle, but this is an enormous assumption. Most likely, it is not possible.<ref>[https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/14/and-everyone-gets-a-robot-pony/ And everyone gets a robot pony!], [[PZ Myers]].</ref><ref>[https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/10/19/well-get-brain-uploading-about-the-time-we-get-teleportation/ We’ll get brain-uploading about the time we get teleportation], [[PZ Myers]].</ref>

=="Gentle silent rape"==

More disconcerting than any of that stuff, however, are Hanson's views on [[sex]] and [[rape]]. For example, after an "[[incel]]" killed 10 people in Toronto, Hanson [[Just asking questions|saw it as an opportunity to equate]] "sex inequality" with [[income inequality]]. In addition to using this an opportunity to blame the [[poor]], saying "The personal failings of the income poor and the sex poor seem similarly plausible as causes of their poverty",<ref>[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-redistribution.html Comparing Income & Sex Redistribution], Robin Hanson.</ref> he also suggested 'sex redistribution':

{{quotebox|One might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met. As with income inequality, most folks concerned about sex inequality might explicitly reject violence as a method, at least for now, and yet still be encouraged privately when the possibility of violence helps move others to support their policies. (Sex could be directly redistributed, or cash might be redistributed in compensation.)<ref>[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/04/two-types-of-envy.html Two Types of Envy], Robin Hanson.</ref>}}

In another post, he mused that "cuckoldry" ([[Manosphere|Redpill]]-speak for female infidelity) was just as bad as "gentle silent rape" and was puzzled over why our law punishes rape far more than cuckoldry:

{{quotebox|It occurred to me recently that we can more clearly compare cuckoldry to gentle silent rape. Imagine a woman was drugged into unconsciousness and then gently raped, so that she suffered no noticeable physical harm nor any memory of the event, and the rapist tried to keep the event secret. Now drugging someone against their will is a crime, but the added rape would add greatly to the crime in the eyes of today’s law, and the added punishment for this addition would be far more than for cuckoldry.

Now compare the two cases, cuckoldry and gentle silent rape. One remaining difference is that the rapist might be a stranger, while a cuckolding wife is not. But we could consider cases where the rapist isn't a stranger. Another difference might be that punishing the cuckolding mother financially may punish her innocent kid. But we could specify the punishment to be non-financial, perhaps [[torture]]. Consider also that it tends to be easier to prove cuckoldry than rape, so if we avoid applying the law to hard-to-prove harms, that should favor punishing cuckoldry more than rape.<ref>[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/11/gentlesilentrape.html Gentle Silent Rape], Robin Hanson.</ref>}}

He had also claimed that "Biologically, cuckoldry is a bigger reproductive harm than rape, so we should expect a similar intensity of inherited emotions about it."<ref>[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/11/require-baby-paternity-test.html Require Baby Paternity Test], Robin Hanson.</ref> and, when people pointed out ''why'' rape was more harmful than infidelity, resorted to repeating sexist generalizations, saying, "We all know that women tend to be more expressive about their complaints – you can’t beat ’em for wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But the fact that men act more stoic and complain less doesn’t mean they hurt less."<ref>[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/11/do-men-hurt-more.html Do Men Hurt More?], Robin Hanson.</ref>

All of this, as with his earlier speculations about the future, seems to point to major misunderstandings in what people value and why. Wealth, and the opportunities and power it bestows, affects every part of our lives. Since it can be so unevenly distributed, and the system naturally rewards those who already have enormous amounts of it, policies to affect how it gets distributed are a major concern. A lack of money makes it harder to get more, and is correlated with negative outcomes in every aspect of human well-being, including health, [[education]], nutrition, and so forth. Getting sex, in comparison, is not very important, and, notably, is far more dependent on one's personal character and choices than is income. It's been pointed out that incels' situation is not because nobody will date them, but that they are too picky.<ref>[http://www.doctornerdlove.com/trouble-with-incels/ The Trouble With Incels], Harris O'Malley.</ref>

Rape ''is'' far more distressing than being cheated on, as rape victims are often diagnosed with [[PTSD]] and require counseling. While being cheated on is a bad thing, it cannot be equated to rape. To have your own bodily security forcibly taken from you is going to be more hurtful than finding out you were deceived. This does not minimize the latter, but emphasizes the [[evil]] of the former. Our "inherited emotions" (to use Hanson's term) are stronger about protecting our bodies, which cannot be replaced, than about relationships or possessions, which can.

Hanson may view this as idle speculation, but to certain mentally unstable people, these ideas are the very things which let them justify their actions. It is a dangerous thing to legitimize the false ideas that anyone is owed sex and that rape is not that harmful.

==Repulsive analogies==
Hanson seems to have an unusual lack of self awareness that his [[thought experiment]]s endorsing "an endless list of bizarre moral claims" can be exceptionally offensive. His colleague Bryan Caplan (associated with the [[Cato Institute]]) says, "Despite his moral views, Robin is an incredibly nice, decent person."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100707212836/https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/hansondebate.htm The Common Sense Case for Liberty] by Bryan Caplan, ''George Mason University'' (archived from July 7, 2010).</ref> Examples include [[Nazi analogies|Nazi analogy]]:<ref name=caplan>[https://www.econlib.org/archives/2009/04/are_grotesque_h.html Are Grotesque Hypotheticals Cheap Shots?] by Bryan Caplan (April 2009) ''Econlib''.</ref>
{{cquote|…"the main problem” with the Holocaust was that there weren’t enough Nazis! After all, if there had been six trillion [[Nazis]] willing to pay $1 each to make the [[Holocaust]] happen, and a mere six million Jews willing to pay $100,000 each to prevent it, the Holocaust would have generated $5.4 trillion worth of consumers surplus.}}
and a [[slavery]]/[[cannibalism]] thought experiment:
{{cquote|Suppose the only people in the world are Hannibal the millionaire, a slave trader, and 10,000 penniless orphan slaves. The slave trader has no direct use for his slaves, but likes money; Hannibal, on the other hand, is a ravenous cannibal. According to Robin, the "optimal outcome" is for Hannibal to get all 10,000 orphans and eat them.}}
According to Caplan, such types of grotesque examples are sometimes given in [[moral]] [[philosophy]] classes, and the normal reaction for students is to step back from their analogous pet philosophies. Such is not the case for Hanson, who would advise [[genocide]] and cannibalism.<ref name=caplan/>

==The Great Filter==

The Great Filter is Hanson's name for the possibility that industrial civilizations tend to destroy themselves before they can explore the galaxy.<ref>[http://robinhanson.com/greatfilter.html The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?] by Robin Hanson, September 15, 1998</ref> This would explain why we don't encounter alien probes or radio signals preaching the word of Zeefalon of Tau Ceti. This possibility was widely discussed during the [[Cold War]] by astronomers such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Frank Drake] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Sagan_book) Carl Sagan] but Hanson is often given credit for the idea anyways.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter</ref><ref>"The Zeroth Commandment," by Scott Aaronson, Shtetl-Optimized, May 6, 2018 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3766 https://archive.ph/xqgeY</ref><ref>[https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-great-filter-a-possible-solution-to-the-fermi-paradox/ "The Great Filter: a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox"] by Doug Adler, November 20, 2020</ref> The assumption that an advanced civilization would obviously expand across the Milky Way, which made Drake ask "where are they?" goes back to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorov_(philosopher) Nikolai Fyodorov] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Tsiolkovsky] in Czarist Russia.

==Futarchy==

Futarchy is Hanson's name for a system where elected officials chose policy goals, then a prediction market chooses policies to implement them. He proposed it in an Internet post in the year 2000 which got some media attention.<ref>[https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs] by Robin Hanson</ref> Hanson quickly turned the manifesto into a series of working papers, but did not publish them academically until 2013, so he probably had trouble getting his idea through peer review.<ref>Hanson, Robin (2007) "Shall we vote on values, but bet on beliefs?" ''Journal of Political Philosophy'', Volume 21, Number 2, 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12008</ref> As of September 2025 it has been cited 192 times on Google Scholar, mainly in unusual areas like Decentralized Autonynmous Organizations (a [[cryptocurrency]] spinoff) and e-cognocracy.  The published version thanks characters including [[Effective altruism|Effective Altruist]] philosopher Nicholas Bostrom, Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, cryptocurrency developer Wei Dai, neoreactionary [[Curtis Yarvin]], and Eliezer Yudkowsky. He was still enthusiastic about the idea in 2025 and suggested that picking space colonization as one of the policy goals would protect against civilization collapse.<ref>[https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/my-hopes-for-rationality My hopes for rationality] by Robin Hanson, overcomingbias.com, August 31, 2025 (now on Substack)</ref> [[Space advocacy|Space cadets]] often argue that colonizing other planets would protect humanity from catastrophes like asteroid impact or nuclear war, but its not clear that living on Mars would be easier than living in a postapocalyptic bunker under Antarctica.<ref>Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, ''A City on Mars'' (Penguin, 2023)</ref>

Futarchy remains a fringe Internet idea.  Among other objections, actually existing speculative markets like the stock market often become detached from the things they are supposed to model. People often believe that a stock price is higher or lower than it should be, but "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Its hard to believe that small prediction markets would stay tied to the 'fundamentals' when big stock markets drift into a world of their own for years or decades. Futarchy would also let people block policies by spending just enough money to keep the market below the level of confidence that triggers a policy.  If I am making enough money by underpaying workers, I can probably afford to spend some money on the "no" side of "resolved: raising the minimum wage will increase the real incomes of the poorest 20% of workers" so the odds in favour never get high enough that such a policy has to be enacted. This model also treats policies in isolation, but realistically they interact with one another, and can help one good thing but damage another. If street crime falls, is that because of police policy, or did the policy actually increase crime while the new soccer field and after-school program reduced it? There is no easy way to decide whether to let a meat packing plant open in your neighbourhood, bringing jobs but smell and traffic. Its hard to imagine a betting market with meaningful trading volume on the mind-numbing details of actual policy like "what if we invest in public housing but delay the light rail extension by two fiscal years and cancel one station?"

==The truth is out there==
Although Hanson invents many strange ideas, in 2025 he endorsed one which is normal for his demographic. He declared that he was 80% confident that either "some [[UFO]]s are what they appear to be" or "a powerful [[conspiracy]] has worked for 75+ years to con folks into thinking (that some UFOs are what they appear to be)." He also considered the possibility that the conspiracy was to hide the existence of real UFOs from the American people and "even from most US presidents." If such a dastardly conspiracy were revealed, he speculated that the American people would rise in righteous anger and replace their tainted leaders with prediction markets.

==See also==
*[[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]
*[[LessWrong]]
*[[Manosphere]]
*[[Mind uploading]]
*[[Rape apology]]
*[[Singularity]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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Categories: Antifeminism, Authors, Bloggers, Economists, Internet kooks, Living people, Longtermism, Manosphere, Men's rights movement, Oligarchic escapes, Pseudoscience promoters, Transhumanism