Claim · 2024-07-09 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Bengio's post of 9 July 2024 states that, to achieve apparently innocuous main goals, it is useful for an AI also to achieve potentially dangerous subgoals such as self-preservation or more control and power over its environment.

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

Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriously → articulates → Instrumental convergence

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →

Claim and evidence

Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriouslyarticulates ↓Instrumental convergence

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2024-07-09 · publication Records dated 2024 →
Role: Articulation
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction

Scope and limitsA statement of the author's argument; the post refers to the literature cited in the International AI Safety Report for evidence and states that such inclinations have been detected, which this record does not check.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriously

Author's blog (yoshuabengio.org) · 2024-07-09

Archived copy, captured 2024-07-09: Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriously

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“the numerous instrumental goals, where to achieve the main apparently innocuous goals, it is useful for the AI to also achieve potentially dangerous subgoals, such as self-preservation or having more control and power over its environment”

Location in source Section "For those who think that corporations will only design well-behaving AIs"

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Yoshua Bengio
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 061559ecadb381ae005f6ca5ec2904200c35fa017592f40da91558ca372e60b2). Current page; its metadata gives datePublished 2024-07-09 and dateModified 2025-12-03, and the page shows no revision note, so later edits cannot be excluded. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31, with the same bytes. The cross-family check of 2026-10-31 found the sampled passages on evidence and on open-sourcing in the capture of 9 July 2024, at the post's earlier address; nearby wording differs, so the whole page is not identical.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Archive copy: Open archived copy, captured 2024-07-09: Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriously. Captured on the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2024-07-09. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-29.
Attribution: Yoshua Bengio, “Reasoning through arguments against taking AI safety seriously”, 2024-07-09.
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. 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.

Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.

Date. Date of posting.

Record ID rd-r02-bengio-2024-reasoning-through-arguments