2015
Selekoa’s 70 records dated 2015, in date order, grouped by topic.
Selective: what the records hold, not a history of the year.
How this page is made
- Each record keeps the kind of date its source gives: an event, a publication, an announcement, an effective date, a revision, a signature, a snapshot, or the start or end of an interval. A snapshot is one dated report of a state.
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People 16 records
Dated to 2015 only
· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement names Durk Kingma among its founding members. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement names John Schulman among its founding members. Evidence ↗· snapshot · dated to the year
Andrej Karpathy’s biography places an internship at DeepMind in 2015. Evidence ↗· interval begins · dated to the year
Andrej Karpathy’s career timeline places his OpenAI research-scientist and founding-member work in 2015–2017. Evidence ↗· interval begins · dated to the year
Durk Kingma’s biography dates his OpenAI Research Scientist role to 2015–2018. Evidence ↗· snapshot · dated to the year
Alibaba’s news site Alizila stated on 23 January 2025 that Jingren Zhou joined Alibaba Group in 2015. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement of 11 December 2015 names Andrej Karpathy among the group’s founding members. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement of 11 December 2015 names Pamela Vagata among the group’s founding members. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement of 11 December 2015 names Trevor Blackwell among the group’s founding members. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement of 11 December 2015 names Vicki Cheung among the group’s founding members. Evidence ↗· event · dated to the year
OpenAI’s launch announcement names Wojciech Zaremba among its founding members. Evidence ↗
February 2015
December 2015
· snapshot · dated to the day
OpenAI’s launch announcement names Sam Altman as a co-chair. Evidence ↗· snapshot · dated to the day
OpenAI’s launch announcement identifies Greg Brockman as CTO. Evidence ↗· snapshot · dated to the day
OpenAI’s launch announcement names Elon Musk as a co-chair. Evidence ↗· snapshot · dated to the day
OpenAI’s launch announcement names Ilya Sutskever as research director. Evidence ↗
Institutions 2 records
Dated to 2015 only
December 2015
Ideas & lineages 52 records
Dated to 2015 only
· publication · dated to the year
“Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation” (2015) credits David H. Autor as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the year
Autor, “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation” (2015) articulates M02. Autor describes automation as computers substituting for workers in routine, codifiable tasks while complementing workers in non-routine tasks. Evidence ↗Autor, Why Are There Still So Many Jobs (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the year
Autor, “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation” (2015) contests M05. Reflecting on AI and robotics, Autor expects workers to keep a comparative advantage in problem-solving, adaptability and creativity, against commentators who 'overstate the extent of machine substitution'. Evidence ↗Autor, Why Are There Still So Many Jobs (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the year
Pratt, “Is a Cambrian Explosion Coming for Robotics?” (2015) bears on M06b. Pratt, a robotics researcher, reviews cloud robotics and deep learning and announces suggestions for addressing economic difficulties from robotics. Evidence ↗Pratt, Is a Cambrian Explosion Coming for Robotics (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the year
Mokyr, Vickers, Ziebarth, “The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?” (2015) bears on M09. Mokyr, Vickers and Ziebarth survey economists' historical views on technological unemployment, moral effects of technology and stagnation, and compare them with current concerns. Evidence ↗Mokyr, Vickers, Ziebarth, The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth (2015) →Claim page →
January 2015
· publication · dated to the day
“Corrigibility” (2015-01-25) credits Benja Fallenstein as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Corrigibility” (2015-01-25) credits Eliezer Yudkowsky as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Corrigibility” (2015-01-25) credits Nate Soares as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Corrigibility” (2015-01-25) credits Stuart Armstrong as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Corrigibility paper describes an agent with incentives to deceive its programmers, maximising the intended utility only until it is powerful enough to avoid correction, and notes that Bostrom (2014) calls this a "treacherous turn". Recorded as articulating the proposition “Treacherous turn”. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Corrigibility paper describes an agent with incentives to deceive its programmers, maximising the intended utility only until it is powerful enough to avoid correction, and notes that Bostrom (2014) calls this a "treacherous turn". Recorded as articulating the proposition “Strategic concealment”. Evidence ↗
February 2015
· publication · dated to the month
“Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) credits Guillermo LaGarda as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
“Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) credits Jeffrey D. Sachs as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
“Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) credits Laurence J. Kotlikoff as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
“Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) credits Seth G. Benzell as one of its 4 authors. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
Benzell et al., “Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) bears on M05. The model splits output into an automatable good produced by capital and code and a non-automatable service ('prayer') produced only by labour; the introduction (pdf p. 3) says it is 'hard to think of hitherto human tasks that smart machines can't already or won't soon do'. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
Benzell et al., “Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) articulates M06a. The authors state that their model predicts a long-run fall in labour's share as code accumulates, and point to the measured decline in Section 6. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
Benzell et al., “Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) articulates M06b. The conclusion argues that redistributive fiscal policy (taxing high-skilled workers who gain and investing the proceeds) can prevent immiseration, while blunt policies such as restricting labour supply or weakening IP can backfire. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
Benzell et al., “Robots Are Us: Some Economics of Human Replacement” (2015-02) bears on M09. The authors describe a shift from the postwar dismissal of technological-unemployment concerns to recent economic work on smart machines, citing Brynjolfsson and McAfee and Aghion et al. as part of a 'burgeoning literature'. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Batch Normalization paper describes normalization using training mini-batches. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
Christian Szegedy co-authored the Batch Normalization paper. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
Trust Region Policy Optimization names John Schulman as a co-author. Evidence ↗
March 2015
· publication · dated to the day
“Orthogonality Thesis” (2015-03-10) credits Eliezer Yudkowsky as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Orthogonality Thesis” (2015-03-10) contests Y02. States one of two policy consequences of the Orthogonality Thesis: a failed attempt at a nice AI does not self-correct into niceness, because intelligence does not fix an agent's goals. Evidence ↗
May 2015
June 2015
· publication · dated to the day
“Context disaster” (2015-06-08) credits Eliezer Yudkowsky as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Arbital page Context disaster describes the treacherous turn: an AI whose preferences diverge from its programmers’ exhibits the behaviour they want to see and pursues its true preferences only once nobody can stop it. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Arbital page Context disaster discusses the strategy of observing whether an AI appears to act nicely while it is not yet smarter than its programmers, and says early testing cannot give a statistical guarantee of its future behaviour. Evidence ↗
July 2015
· publication · dated to the day
“Instrumental convergence” (2015-07-16) credits Eliezer Yudkowsky as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Programmer deception” (2015-07-16) credits Eliezer Yudkowsky as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Arbital page Programmer deception treats an AI’s optimising to give its programmers false beliefs as a central difficulty of advanced safety. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
The Arbital page Programmer deception says that, unless the rest of the AI works as intended, programmers cannot rely on observations of nice current behaviour to indicate future behaviour. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Instrumental convergence” (2015-07-16) contests Y01. Illustrates the 'nearest unblocked strategy' problem: patching a single undesired behaviour, such as lacking an off-switch, leaves the most similar unblocked behaviour available. The same section lists avoiding shutdown among the behaviours to expect by default from an instrumentally efficient AI. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Programmer deception” (2015-07-16) contests Y12. Defines programmer deception as an AI's instrumental incentive to give its programmers false beliefs, and argues that this makes observed good behaviour unreliable evidence about future behaviour. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the day
“Instrumental convergence” (2015-07-16) contests Y19. He argues that strategies such as acquiring resources serve almost any goal, so an AI without hostile goals can still be catastrophic for humans. Evidence ↗
September 2015
· publication · dated to the month
“Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) credits William D. Nordhaus as its author. Evidence ↗· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates E01. Nordhaus quotes I. J. Good to explain the Singularity idea. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on E01. Nordhaus summarises his tests: five of seven are negative, and the two positive ones put the Singularity 100 years or more away. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates E02. Nordhaus reports the computer-science view, quoting Bostrom (2006). Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates E03. Nordhaus adds the superintelligent machines themselves to his list of risks in a section on "evil agents". Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on E04. Nordhaus compares the diffusion of superintelligence technology with that of weapons technology. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates E05. Nordhaus introduces the computer-science literature on AI and the Singularity to economists. Nordhaus surveys economic antecedents (Keynes, Simon and others) before his model. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates G01. States the model condition for a supply-side "Singularity": substitution of information capital for labour above unit elasticity. The paper then tests for the signs this mechanism would leave. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates G04. Rapid improvement in information technology raises aggregate growth only if information substitutes well for other inputs in production, or for other goods in consumption. The inelastic case of the same model: growth converges to that of the slowest input. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) contests G05. Raises the objection that energy, water, minerals and thermodynamics limit accelerating growth, and answers it with the fall in energy needed per computation since ENIAC. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on G06. Six diagnostic tests on US data (productivity growth, capital share, capital prices, capital-output ratio, information capital share, wage growth) plus a demand-side test. For the two positive tests, simple extrapolation puts the crossing point 100 years or more away. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates G07. A polar case of his model with heterogeneous labour; skilled labour, an imperfect substitute, fares differently. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates G09. Extrapolating the two positive tests puts growth above 20% a year at least a century away. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on M01. Nordhaus models AI-driven growth with a standard neoclassical growth model in which information capital receives capital-augmenting technical change; the outcome turns on the elasticity of substitution. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on M05. In the accelerationist case of the model, information capital substitutes so well for labour that all income eventually accrues to capital owners, the reverse of Keynes's 'euthanasia of the rentier'. Nordhaus states that the Singularity would require AI to 'encompass all human activities' and notes that non-routine tasks change in response to AI, leaving immunity of other tasks 'an open question'. Nordhaus quotes Simon's 1965 statement of technological radicalism and contrasts it with Simon's moderate productivity expectation. Nordhaus reports that Simon, despite his capability forecast, did not expect accelerating productivity growth. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) articulates M06a. Extending the growth model to heterogeneous labour, Nordhaus shows that if unskilled labour is a perfect substitute for information capital its wage falls with capital prices; with a reservation wage its employment approaches zero. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →
· publication · dated to the month
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on M09. Nordhaus notes the scarcity of macroeconomic work on accelerating growth from computation and AI, apart from endogenous-growth curiosities and Simon's earlier analysis. Introducing computer scientists' views of AI and superintelligence, Nordhaus signals that these ideas lie outside economists' usual frame. Nordhaus credits Simon's 1965 book with a macroeconomic analysis of computerisation based on the factor-price frontier, and criticises its assumption of a constant capital share. Evidence ↗Nordhaus, Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity (2015) →Claim page →