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Bostrom's paper of 2012 states the orthogonality thesis: that intelligence and final goals are orthogonal axes along which possible agents can freely vary, so that more or less any level of intelligence could in principle be combined with more or less any final goal. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2012-05 · publication Records dated 2012 → Role Most developed, Earliest located use of the name Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Name used “orthogonality thesis” Scope and limits Earliest located use of the name “orthogonality thesis” among the texts the searches found; it is not evidence of coinage. The paper states the thesis 'with some caveats' and holds that it concerns logical possibility, not that arbitrary goals would be easy to instil.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents ↗ Author's site (nickbostrom.com); published in Minds and Machines 22(2), May 2012 · 2012-05
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Source excerpt “Intelligence and final goals are orthogonal axes along which possible agents can freely vary. In other words, more or less any level of intelligence could in principle be combined with more or less any final goal.” Location in source Section 1.2, The orthogonality thesis, PDF p. 3
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-31
Source details and check notes Authors Nick Bostrom Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 4bf5ce7c3d974e4ef889b98a89b248861787baa986b8bc13afe401a2346cebaf). author's PDF headed '[Minds and Machines, Vol. 22, Iss. 2, May 2012]'; PDF metadata created 2012-03-17, modified 2021-12-24; the journal's typeset version was not compared. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31, with the same bytes. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-29 Language English (en) Attribution Nick Bostrom, “The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents”, 2012-05. 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, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (36 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-10-31, item 62) answered the record’s question blind and agreed with its stance. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents ↗ Author's site (nickbostrom.com); published in Minds and Machines 22(2), May 2012 · 2012-05
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Source excerpt “The orthogonality thesis suggests that we cannot blithely assume that a superintelligence will necessarily share any of the final values stereotypically associated with wisdom and intellectual development in humans” Location in source Conclusions, PDF p. 14
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-31
Source details and check notes Authors Nick Bostrom Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 4bf5ce7c3d974e4ef889b98a89b248861787baa986b8bc13afe401a2346cebaf). author's PDF headed '[Minds and Machines, Vol. 22, Iss. 2, May 2012]'; PDF metadata created 2012-03-17, modified 2021-12-24; the journal's typeset version was not compared. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31, with the same bytes. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-29 Language English (en) Attribution Nick Bostrom, “The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents”, 2012-05. 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, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (29 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-10-31, item 62) answered the record’s question blind and agreed with its stance. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
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Record ID rd-r01-bostrom-2012-superintelligent-will