Textbook of AI

1979–, AI researcher and writer

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky is an American AI researcher and writer who has been the central public figure of the AI alignment community since the mid-2000s. He co-founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) in 2000 (originally the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) and is the author of the long sequences of essays on rationality and AI safety that became the foundation of the LessWrong online community.

Yudkowsky has consistently held that the development of artificial general intelligence poses an existential risk to humanity unless the alignment problem, ensuring such systems pursue goals compatible with human values, is solved in advance of capability. His public position has hardened over the past decade; in 2023 he wrote in Time magazine arguing for an indefinite global pause on frontier AI training runs. The position is contested but has become an unavoidable touchstone of public debate on advanced AI.

Yudkowsky is also the author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a fan-fiction novel exposition of rationalist methodology that has been read by millions and has acted as a gateway into the rationalist and AI-safety communities for many readers.