Claim · 2019-10-08 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Russell's article of 8 October 2019 argues that a machine will have goals such as self-preservation and resource acquisition as subgoals of any objective it is given, and will resist being switched off because it would otherwise fail in its objective.

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

Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrong → articulates → Instrumental convergence

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →

Claim and evidence

Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrongarticulates ↓Instrumental convergence

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2019-10-08 · publication Records dated 2019 →
Role: Articulation
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction

Scope and limitsA statement of the author's argument; not evidence about any built system.

The evidence 02

primary sourceSupports the claim

Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrong

IEEE Spectrum (spectrum.ieee.org) · 2019-10-08

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“The machine is going to have those emotions anyway, as subgoals of any objective we do build in—and regardless of its gender.”

Location in source Section replying to Pinker and LeCun

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Stuart Russell
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 44432d3c30826cf27e47a02b24bf2bb9afea8db05e619f33870d279f69c833f8). current IEEE Spectrum page dated 08 Oct 2019, based on a chapter of Human Compatible (Viking, 2019); printed in the October 2019 issue as "It’s Not Too Soon to Be Wary of AI", 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: Stuart Russell, “Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrong”, 2019-10-08.
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 (22 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 115) re-read the record’s source and found the quotation and stance supported. No human editorial review.

primary sourceSupports the claim

Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrong

IEEE Spectrum (spectrum.ieee.org) · 2019-10-08

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“And it will do that not because it “wants to stay alive” but because it is pursuing whatever objective we gave it and knows that it will fail if it is switched off.”

Location in source Section on "just switch it off"

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Stuart Russell
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 44432d3c30826cf27e47a02b24bf2bb9afea8db05e619f33870d279f69c833f8). current IEEE Spectrum page dated 08 Oct 2019, based on a chapter of Human Compatible (Viking, 2019); printed in the October 2019 issue as "It’s Not Too Soon to Be Wary of AI", 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: Stuart Russell, “Many Experts Say We Shouldn’t Worry About Superintelligent AI. They’re Wrong”, 2019-10-08.
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 (33 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 115) re-read the record’s source and found the quotation and stance supported. 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 publication, as the source gives it.

Record ID rd-r02-russell-2019-ieee-spectrum