Claims

Factual · Their own work or organisation

“I mean, as far as I know, I'm the person who originally made that argument.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky, interviewee · September 2025 · Interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky on Rationality and Systematic Misunderstanding of AI Alignment (LessWrong)

Yudkowsky said that, as far as he knows, he was the person who originally made that argument.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

What would count as true or false

The proposition is only that Yudkowsky said this (hedged with 'as far as I know'). It does not assert that he was in fact the originator. True: a transcript or recording from about September 2025 shows him saying that, as far as he knows, he originally made the argument under discussion. Mostly true: he made this statement, but the wording, date or venue differs slightly. Mixed: he made a weaker or different statement about the argument's origin (e.g. that he was among the early people to make it). Mostly false: he discussed the argument but did not claim to be its originator. False: the source shows he attributed the argument to someone else, or the quote is shown not to be his.

Evidence

1. Sam Harris and Eliezer Yudkowsky on "AI: Racing Toward the Brink" - Machine Intelligence Research Institute Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) · 28 February 2018 Own record

   “It could still be Bostrom. I asked somebody, “Do you remember who it was?” and they searched through the archives of the mailing list where this idea plausibly originated and if it originated there, then I was the first one to say “paperclips.””

2. Are We Past Peak iPhone? + Eliezer Yudkowsky on A.I. Doom podscripts.co (transcript of NYT's Hard Fork podcast) · 12 September 2025

   “Then AI Dumer-in-Chief, Elizer Yudkowski, is here to discuss his new book.”

3. Are We Past Peak iPhone? + Eliezer Yudkowsky on A.I. Doom podscripts.co (transcript of NYT's Hard Fork podcast) · 12 September 2025

   “That's actually a distorted version of the thought experiment. It's the one that got written up, but the original version that I formulated was you, somebody had just completely lost control of the superintelligence they were building.”

4. Sam Harris and Eliezer Yudkowsky on "AI: Racing Toward the Brink" - Machine Intelligence Research Institute Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 28 February 2018 Own record

   “Eliezer: As far as I know, it’s me.”

5. DoomsdAI dtnext.in (republishing The New York Times) · 14 September 2025

   “He was among the first to warn of risks from powerful AI systems, and many AI leaders, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk, have cited his ideas.”

6. DoomsdAI dtnext.in (republishing The New York Times) · 14 September 2025

   “In addition to his work on AI safety — a field he more or less invented — Yudkowsky is the intellectual force behind Rationalism, a loosely organised movement”

7. #434 — Can We Survive AI? podscripts.co (transcript of the Making Sense podcast with Sam Harris) · 16 September 2025

   “you were among the first people to make me concerned about AI,”

Reasoning

The September 2025 Hard Fork transcript (E3) shows Yudkowsky calling a widely circulated thought experiment a distorted version and referring to 'the original version that I formulated'. That is a claim to have originated it, made in the right month, though not in the quoted words and without the 'as far as I know' hedge. The exact hedged wording, 'As far as I know, it's me,' appears in a 2018 MIRI transcript (E4), not in a 2025 source. No evidence item contains the exact quoted sentence from about September 2025, so the claim holds with differences in wording.

Cite this claim

Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Yudkowsky said that, as far as he knows, he was the person who originally made that argument.” (said September 2025). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_8ec994cdeb35, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_8ec994cdeb35