Claim · 1998 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Bostrom's 'How Long Before Superintelligence?' (copyright 1997, published 1998) uses 'superintelligence' in its title and body for an intellect much smarter than the best human brains.

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

How Long Before Superintelligence? → uses the name →

Where it appears

No collection page holds this claim. It is listed with its records in the explorer.

Claim and evidence

How Long Before Superintelligence?uses the name ↓

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1998 · publication Records dated 1998 →

Scope and limitsA use; the wording is read from the author's current page, revised in 1998 and with later postscripts, so the 1997 text is not attested by this copy.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

How Long Before Superintelligence?

nickbostrom.com (author's site) · 1998

Cite the original source

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

Source excerpt

“By a “superintelligence” we mean an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills.”

Location in source Section 'Definition of “superintelligence”'

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 a063c6e28b6ae6777725b5c16f0804a24d07dd640fa18cb9fd2126802e379199). Author's current HTML page (redirected to https://nickbostrom.com/papers/how-long-before-superintelligence/): '(1997) Copyright', revised 25 October 1998 with a postscript, further postscripts added 28 August 2000, 30 October 2005 and 12 March 2008. The 1998 journal text (Int. Jour. of Futures Studies vol. 2) was not retrieved; wording older than the current page is not attested by this copy.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Nick Bostrom, “How Long Before Superintelligence?”, 1998.
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, Kinds of AI and technical history (research/technical-history). The quotation (28 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes, PDF line-break hyphens 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 uses a name for a family of methods or a term, in the sense the concept’s naming criterion describes or, where labelled, in another sense. The record documents the use; it is not evidence that the name began there, and it implies no influence on or from another text.

Date. Publication year the author gives (Int. Jour. of Futures Studies vol. 2); the author's page also says '(1997) Copyright'.

Record ID th-term-si-bostrom-1998