notkilleveryoneism
In plain wordsA deliberately clumsy joke-word for the goal of making sure advanced AI does not kill everyone, adopted because terms like 'AI safety' had come to cover much milder concerns.
A tongue-in-cheek name for the project of preventing advanced AI from causing human extinction or a comparable catastrophe, adopted to separate that goal from broader senses of AI safetyAI safety, n.: The effort to keep AI from doing serious harm, whether because it pursues aims its makers never intended, is turned to bad uses or simply malfunctions — a concern that grows as systems become more capable. and alignmentAI alignment, n.: Making an AI system genuinely try to do what the people it serves want — not a literal-minded, distorted or self-serving version of it. Also the research field working on this., which by the early 2020s were also used for content moderation, brand safety, bias reduction and making chatbots polite. Its users chose an ungainly, unmistakable word on the theory that respectable-sounding names get diluted as they spread. It circulates mainly on LessWrongLessWrong, prop. n.: An online forum, founded in 2009, about thinking clearly and avoiding mental biases; it became a main gathering place for people worried about the dangers of advanced AI. and AI-risk social media, often ironically, and also names a popular meme account devoted to AI risk.
I don't mean safety as in no swear words — I mean notkilleveryoneism.
Origin
In use on Twitter and LessWrong by early 2023, often in the form 'AI notkilleveryoneism'; a LessWrong post of 28 April 2023 already debated whether the word 'sounds dumb'. Who coined it is not established; it is often associated with Eliezer Yudkowsky and his circle, who had long complained that the names of their field were being diluted. The meme account 'AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes' spread it further.
Related
- AI safetyAI safety, n.: The effort to keep AI from doing serious harm, whether because it pursues aims its makers never intended, is turned to bad uses or simply malfunctions — a concern that grows as systems become more capable.
- AI alignmentAI alignment, n.: Making an AI system genuinely try to do what the people it serves want — not a literal-minded, distorted or self-serving version of it. Also the research field working on this.
- existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown.
- doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.
- p(doom)p(doom), n.: Shorthand for someone's personal estimate of the chance that AI leads to catastrophe for humanity, such as extinction. People give it as a percentage, from nearly zero to nearly certain.
- Eliezer YudkowskyEliezer Yudkowsky, prop. n.: An American writer and AI theorist who, from around 2000, argued that superhuman AI would likely destroy humanity unless its goals were made safe, and who founded an online community devoted to rational thinking.
Mentioned in
doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.