Claim · 2015 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Pinker's Edge response of 2015 states that AI dystopias project a parochial alpha-male psychology onto the concept of intelligence, assuming that superhumanly intelligent robots would develop goals like deposing their masters or taking over the world.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Thinking Does Not Imply Subjugating → contests → Machines succeed humans as the leading intelligence

Where it appears

Machine succession, scale and acceleration: propositions in located texts, 1979–2026 →

Claim and evidence

Thinking Does Not Imply Subjugatingcontests ↓Machines succeed humans as the leading intelligence

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2015 · publication Records dated 2015 →
Role: Contesting
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Engagement: Engages a premise. Disputes the premise that a superhumanly intelligent machine would come to seek to depose its makers or take over the world.

Scope and limitsPinker addresses takeover scenarios; he states that machines could in principle exceed the powers of the human mind but that this is not likely in practice.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Thinking Does Not Imply Subjugating

Edge.org, 2015 Annual Question "What do you think about machines that think?" · 2015

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“AI dystopias project a parochial alpha-male psychology onto the concept of intelligence. They assume that superhumanly intelligent robots would develop goals like deposing their masters or taking over the world.”

Location in source Paragraph beginning "Would an artificially intelligent system"

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-01

Source details and check notes

Authors: Steven Pinker
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 a3708aa2e21f7fab98ee58ec0dc65d0ba1188e6ea8673831093a2a3967f64c72). current Edge.org response page retrieved 2026-10-29; the response is printed in Brockman (ed.), What to Think About Machines That Think (2015), pp. 5-8, which was not compared. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31; the bytes differ, and the check compared the quoted passages.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Steven Pinker, “Thinking Does Not Imply Subjugating”, 2015.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (30 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Edge files the response under the 2015 Edge Question; no day is given on the page.

Record ID ht-w01-pinker-2015-thinking-does-not-imply-subjugating