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94 people, organisations and other records · 122 relationships · 34 claims about a valueEverything recorded up to the chosen year, whether or not still in effect · Undated records included
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The Extropians message “Re: FAQ Additions (Posthuman mind control)” (1999-02-24) bears on Y04. Replying to Nick Bostrom on posthuman mind control, he argues that a reasoning AI given an initial goal such as 'make humans happy' would derive its own independent values for that goal, probably but not necessarily positive and with somewhat different priorities. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 1999-02-24 · publication Role Context Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Missing element About goal drift from a happiness goal assumed to be sufficiently specified; it does not address whether a short instruction specifies what people want. Scope and limits Premise addressed: A short instruction such as 'make people happy' specifies what we want. About goal drift in his 1999 'Interim goal' architecture, not about whether the phrase specifies what we want; he assumes 'sufficient specification' of the terms.
The evidence 01 primary source Supports the claim
Re: FAQ Additions (Posthuman mind control) (Extropians mailing list) ↗ Extropians mailing list · 1999-02-24
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Source excerpt “any initial goal stating "make humans happy" and containing sufficient specification of "humans" and "happy" … will be enough to generate independent Interim values for that goal” Location in source message body, paragraph beginning 'Likewise, any initial goal stating'
Machine-checked · 2026-10-07
Source details and check notes Authors Eliezer Yudkowsky Version Archive HTML as served, retrieved 2026-10-07 (SHA-256 0b8a3410b156a896a6024dd7740a0647ed447406326d196ca9a1e050de7bfa55); quoted lines excluded when reading the author’s text. The served archive shows later URL rewriting and does not authenticate historical bytes. Archive at extropians.weidai.com. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-07 Language English (en) Attribution Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Re: FAQ Additions (Posthuman mind control)”, Extropians mailing list, 1999-02-24. 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 T04-e2. The quotation (27 words) matched the retrieved expression (SHA-256 0b8a3410b156a896a6024dd7740a0647ed447406326d196ca9a1e050de7bfa55) when checked on 2026-10-07. 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. Archive author index lists the message as "1999-02-24" under "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky".
Record ID yk-y04-extropians-1999-02-24-yudkowsky-2293-b