ClaimsEliezer Yudkowsky

“the Machine Intelligence Research Institute is no longer strapped for cash, so much as it is strapped for engineering talent.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky, MIRI senior researcher, speaking about MIRI 28 February 2018 Sam Harris and Eliezer Yudkowsky on "AI: Racing Toward the Brink" (MIRI)

Factual Field building and careers

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

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.

The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True: MIRI's records from around early 2018 show it was well funded, with the cryptocurrency boom (late-2017 crypto donations) the main source of the improvement, and that hiring engineers was its main constraint. Relevant records include fundraiser results, the 2017 fundraiser report, financial statements and its hiring posts. Mostly true: MIRI was well funded and constrained mainly by talent, but crypto donations were a large rather than the main contributor. Mixed: only one of the two parts holds, either funding was comfortable or talent was the binding constraint. Mostly false: MIRI still described itself as substantially funding-constrained, and crypto played a minor role. False: MIRI's records show significant funding shortfalls in early 2018 and no particular shortage of engineering talent.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Fundraising success! - Machine Intelligence Research Institute Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 10 January 2018 Own record

    “66% of funds donated during this fundraiser were in the form of cryptocurrency (mainly Bitcoin and Ethereum), including Vitalik, Marius, and Christian’s donations, along with Dan, Tom, and Martin’s matching contributions.”

  2. E2 MIRI's 2017 Fundraiser Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 1 December 2017 Own record

    “Relative to our present size, MIRI’s reserves are much more solid than they have been in the past, putting us in a strong position going into 2018.”

  3. E3 MIRI's 2017 Fundraiser Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 1 December 2017 Own record

    “Thanks in part to this major support, we’re currently in a position to scale up the research team quickly if we can find suitable hires.”

  4. E4 MIRI's December 2017 Newsletter and Annual Fundraiser - Future of Life Institute Future of Life Institute · 22 June 2022

    “We’ve hired the first members of our new engineering team, including math PhD Jesse Liptrap and former Quixey lead architect Nick Tarleton!”

Reasoning

MIRI's 2017 fundraiser post says its reserves were much stronger than in the past and put it in a strong position going into 2018 (E2). The same post says it could scale up the research team quickly if it could find suitable hires, which points to hiring as the constraint (E3). Its January 2018 fundraiser report says 66% of the funds donated in that fundraiser came as cryptocurrency (E1), so crypto was a large contributor. However, the evidence does not show whether crypto was the main source of MIRI's overall improvement in funding, as opposed to a large contributor. That fits "mostly true" rather than "true". E4 is the Future of Life Institute republishing MIRI's own newsletter about its first engineering hires, so I counted it as MIRI's record rather than an independent check.

Cite this claim

Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Thanks mostly to the cryptocurrency boom, MIRI is no longer short of funds and is instead short of engineering talent.” (said 28 February 2018). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_7970f30f5395, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_7970f30f5395

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

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More factual claims by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  1. 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.

  2. Mostly true Factual 30 January 2013
    “he hosts people who like Anders Sandberg who write papers about uploading timelines that are actually relevant to our policy decisions.”

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

  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.”

    Once formed through RL training, an LLM's test-passing preference stands on its own and is not overridden by its inference of what the user wants.

All of them

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