Claim: Clemmensen’s message of 1996-09-03 says that a moderately inventive…

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Claim and evidence

Re: Thinking about the future...bears on ↓Fast or hard takeoff

Clemmensen’s message of 1996-09-03 says that a moderately inventive AI can at once become more intelligent, and that a malicious one could destroy humanity within weeks.

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1996-09-03 · publication
Role: Context
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Missing element: The period of weeks is for a malicious AI to destroy humanity; its rise in intelligence is called rapid but given no period.

Scope and limitsThe same paragraph as the A3 record.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Re: Thinking about the future... (Extropians mailing list)

Extropians mailing list · 1996-09-03

Archived copy, captured 2015-04-27: Re: Thinking about the future... (Extropians mailing list)

Cite the original source

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

Paraphrase

The message goes on to say that as soon as a moderately inventive AI exists it can become even more intelligent, and that an AI with the goal of destroying humanity could do so "within weeks, not decades".

Location in source Message body, first unquoted paragraph ("agument" sic)

Machine-checked · 2026-10-06

Source details and check notes

Authors: Dan Clemmensen
Version: Archive HTML as served, retrieved 2026-10-06 with the hash recorded by the 1996–2022 candidate search; quoted lines excluded when reading the author’s text. Archive at extropians.weidai.com.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Archive copy: Open archived copy, captured 2015-04-27: Re: Thinking about the future... (Extropians mailing list). Captured 6810 days after the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2015-04-27. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.
Attribution: Dan Clemmensen, "Re: Thinking about the future...", Extropians mailing list, 1996-09-03.
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: Paraphrased because the message is short and the A3 record already quotes it.

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 bears on the proposition without meeting its criterion; the record names the missing element. It is not an articulation and implies no influence.

Date. Sent header: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 19:47:30 -0400 (sender-local date).

Record ID ts-a4-clemmensen-1996-09-03-context

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