Claim · 2015-02-25 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Altman's blog post of 25 February 2015 states that the development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity, ranking it above an engineered virus.

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

Machine intelligence, part 1 → articulates → Risk of extinction or comparable catastrophe

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →

Claim and evidence

Machine intelligence, part 1articulates ↓Risk of extinction or comparable catastrophe

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2015-02-25 · publication Records dated 2015 →
Role: Articulation
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction

Scope and limitsThe post states the author's view in 2015; it is not evidence of his later views or of his company's policy.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Machine intelligence, part 1

Author's blog (blog.samaltman.com) · 2015-02-25

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) [1] is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity.”

Location in source Section "Why you should fear machine intelligence", paragraph 1

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Sam Altman
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 7001208dc834965a1e289f2c995225ffe3d1962a0e7f8a871ba991e085f500e1). Current blog page; the page carries no visible date in the retrieved text. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31, with the same bytes. The date of 25 February 2015 is not printed in the post's text; the cross-family check of 2026-10-31 could not confirm it from the page body.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Sam Altman, “Machine intelligence, part 1”, 2015-02-25.
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 (18 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-r07-altman-2015-machine-intelligence-part-1