ClaimsEliezer Yudkowsky

“he hosts people who like Anders Sandberg who write papers about uploading timelines that are actually relevant to our policy decisions.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky, interviewee 30 January 2013 Yudkowsky on "What can we do now?" (MIRI)

Factual Field building and careers

Nick Bostrom hosts researchers such as Anders Sandberg, who write papers about uploading timelines relevant to policy decisions.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judged as of 2013-01-30. True: as of that date, Anders Sandberg was a researcher at an organization Nick Bostrom led (the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford), and Sandberg had written papers on whole brain emulation or uploading timelines (for example the 2008 Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap) that address when uploading could become feasible. Mostly true: the affiliation and papers exist, but with a minor detail off, for example the papers are on uploading feasibility in general rather than on timelines. Mixed: one main element holds and the other does not (for example Sandberg was at FHI but had no such papers, or the reverse). Mostly false: Sandberg had only a loose connection to Bostrom's institute, or the papers are only tangentially about uploading. False: Sandberg was not hosted at any Bostrom-led institution at the time, and had written no papers on uploading. The judgment that the papers are 'relevant to policy decisions' is the speaker's opinion and is not tested.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (6)

  1. E1 Why do philosophers care whether alien life is out there? Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford · 1 August 2013

    “Dr Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute reflects on the first meeting earlier this month of the UK SETI Research Network”

  2. E2 Future of Humanity Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

    “The Future of Humanity Institute was established in 2005 with funding from the Oxford Martin School (then known as the James Martin 21st Century School).”

  3. E3 Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University (Technical Report #2008-3) · 2008

    “Sandberg, A. & Bostrom, N. (2008): Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap, Technical Report #2008‐3, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University”

  4. E4 Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University (Technical Report #2008-3) · 2008

    “In order to develop ideas about the feasibility of WBE, ground technology foresight and stimulate interdisciplinary exchange, the Future of Humanity Institute hosted a workshop on May 26 and 27, 2007, in Oxford.”

  5. E5 Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University (Technical Report #2008-3) · 2008

    “It aims at providing a preliminary roadmap for WBE, sketching out key technologies that would need to be developed or refined, and identifying key problems or uncertainties.”

  6. E6 Whole brain emulation: a roadmap - ORA - Oxford University Research Archive Oxford University Research Archive (Bodleian Libraries) · 1 January 2008

    “Sandberg, A., & Bostrom, N. (2008). Whole brain emulation: a roadmap. Future of Humanity Institute.”

Reasoning

E3 and E6 show that Anders Sandberg co-wrote "Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap" (2008) with Nick Bostrom, published as an FHI technical report. E1 places Sandberg at FHI in August 2013, which together with the 2008 affiliation supports him being there on 2013-01-30. The quoted passages (E4, E5) present the roadmap as a feasibility study of the technologies needed, not explicitly as a timeline. No item directly states that Bostrom led FHI, though his co-authorship of an FHI report fits that. The criteria's 'feasibility rather than timelines' case fits best, so the verdict is mostly true.

Cite this claim

Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Nick Bostrom hosts researchers such as Anders Sandberg, who write papers about uploading timelines relevant to policy decisions.” (said 30 January 2013). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_0923104e5511, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_0923104e5511

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Eliezer Yudkowsky, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  1. Mostly true Factual 28 February 2018
    “the Machine Intelligence Research Institute is no longer strapped for cash, so much as it is strapped for engineering talent.”

    Thanks mostly to the cryptocurrency boom, MIRI is no longer short of funds and is instead short of engineering talent.

  2. Mostly true Factual 30 January 2013
    “He’s doing lots of meta-strategy work, but he also does work on anthropic probabilities and the parliamentary model for normative uncertainty and other things that are object-level”

    Nick Bostrom does meta-strategy work as well as object-level work on anthropic probabilities and the parliamentary model for normative uncertainty.

  3. Resolved true Factual 30 January 2013
    “Paul Christiano isn’t making this mistake, since Paul is working on actual FAI problems while looking for other promising interventions.”

    Paul Christiano is working on actual Friendly AI problems while also looking for other promising interventions.

  4. Mixed Factual 20 April 2026
    “I was observing that obvious-seeming hypothesis myself, sometime around the time of GPT 3.5.”

    Yudkowsky himself observed the persona-selection-like hypothesis around the time of GPT 3.5.

  5. Mostly true Factual 20 April 2026
    “The test-passing preference stands on its own once formed.”

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All of them

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