Response to Jaron Lanier, "The Myth of AI" (Edge Reality Club)
An essay by Steven Pinker, Edge.org, dated 2014. The Edge conversation page dates the conversation 14 November 2014; the Reality Club responses carry no dates of their own, so only the year is given.
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- No authorship claim recorded yet. The source record lists Steven Pinker.
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- No date claim recorded yet. The source record gives the publication date as 2014.
- Exact source
- Response by Steven Pinker, in "The Myth of AI" (Reality Club discussion) Edge.org, conversation page "The Myth of AI" (Jaron Lanier, dated 14 November 2014), Reality Club discussion · published 2014 · Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 6ea0800c969ae54c4fad372468aa5a9a557b4d25a081bee9b26d51048fd8d159). current Edge.org conversation page retrieved 2026-10-29 (the page states that the site is hosted by the Internet Archive); responses carry no individual dates. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31; the bytes differ, and the check compared the quoted passages. The cross-family check of 2026-10-31 found Pinker's passage on evolved drives in the capture of the conversation page of 16 November 2014; a capture attests only what the archive held on that date.Archived copy, captured 2014-11-16: Response by Steven Pinker, in "The Myth of AI" (Reality Club discussion). An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2014-11-16. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-29.
- Earliest located text contesting R02 Instrumental convergence in Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →
- Earliest located text contesting R07 Risk of extinction or comparable catastrophe in Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →
- Earliest located text contesting R08 Existential risk from misalignment or loss of control in Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →
- Earliest located text contesting R09 Catastrophic risk from misuse in Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →
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- Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →5 records on this document
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Articulates · 1
Propositions whose criterion a passage of this document meets. The record says what the text states, in its register; it is not evidence that the proposition is true.
- Intelligence brings benevolence or no drive to dominatePinker's Edge response of 2014 argues that superhumanly intelligent robots would have no reason to want to depose their masters or dominate, because goals are extraneous to intelligence and dominance-seeking is a product of primate natural selection, not a feature of intelligent systems.2014 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Intelligence brings benevolence or no drive to dominate: propositions page →
Contests · 4
Propositions a passage of this document disputes, or a premise they depend on.
- Instrumental convergencePinker's Edge response of 2014 argues that megalomaniacal behaviour is a product of natural selection in one primate species, not an inevitable feature of intelligent systems.2014 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Instrumental convergence: propositions page →
- Risk of extinction or comparable catastrophePinker's Edge response of 2014 argues that there are reasons not to worry about killer robots and machines running amok: disaster scenarios are cheap to play out in the imagination, where no probabilities apply, and AI dystopias project a dominance psychology onto intelligence.2014 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Risk of extinction or comparable catastrophe: propositions page →
- Existential risk from misalignment or loss of controlPinker's Edge response of 2014 asks why superhumanly intelligent robots would want to depose their masters, massacre bystanders or take over the world, holding that goals are extraneous to intelligence.2014 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Existential risk from misalignment or loss of control: propositions page →
- Catastrophic risk from misusePinker's Edge response of 2014 argues that a deliberately designed and released battalion of robots for mass destruction would require a chain of improbable conditions (a malevolent technological genius, a secret and loyal team, and survival of detection and blunders), and that while it could happen in theory there are more pressing things to worry about.2014 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Catastrophic risk from misuse: propositions page →
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