☄️Nick Bostrom
Original nameNick Bostrom
Swedish Philosopher, Author of the Book Superintelligence
The Math Behind the Algorithm · Theoretical Founders
The Book SuperintelligenceExistential Risk ResearchThe Oxford Future of Humanity Institute
Who they are
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher long at the University of Oxford who in 2014 published Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, systematically exploring the existential risk that AI systems whose intelligence wholly surpasses humanity might bring to human civilization, and how to design corresponding safety precautions in advance, a book that after publication provoked wide discussion among tech-industry leaders, several tech entrepreneurs including Elon Musk publicly saying it profoundly shaped their understanding of AI risk. The Future of Humanity Institute Bostrom founded at Oxford long focused on studying the long-term existential risks that frontier technologies such as AI and biotechnology might bring, one of the earliest academic institutions in this research field.
Primary sourcesBostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014)
Key stories
A Book That Made Silicon Valley’s Entrepreneurs Start Losing Sleep
After Superintelligence was published, Elon Musk publicly said on social media that the book made him "deeply uneasy about the risks AI may bring" and called AI "one of the greatest existential risks facing human civilization," and other tech leaders such as Bill Gates in turn expressed similar worries, so that this philosophical work originally written for a scholarly readership thereafter unexpectedly became one of the important occasions driving the Silicon Valley tech elite to systematically attend to AI-safety issues.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
A bestseller that shaped Silicon Valley entrepreneurs’ perceptionSeveral tech-industry leaders including Musk and Gates have publicly said this book deeply shaped their own perception of AI risk, a typical case of an academic work influencing the perception of the industry’s decision-making layer.