Episode Details

This was produced as a part of the AI Safety Camp 2026 "Assumptions of the Doom Debate" project, led by Sean Herrington, who was also the lead author on this post. The other participants have equal contributions and are listed in no particular order. It is the first in a sequence we intend to publish over the coming weeks.

TL;DR:

• We have created a breakdown of AI threat pathways, which can be accessed at https://lifeuniversesafety.com/doom-assumptions/index.html
• This breakdown is in a tree format, and we allow people to set their own probabilities for each threat pathway
• You can use this to drill down into components of your P(Doom)
• You can analyse the sensitivity of your beliefs to changes in your assumptions
• You can compare your worldview to others’ and find cruxes automatically
• The exercise of creating this sort of structure is valuable as a way to think about the future in a more general manner.

Introduction

Just about everyone in the AI community seems to disagree about the risks of the technology. People disagree on the likelihood (Yann LeCun: <0.01% chance of extinction; Roman Yampolskiy: >99.99%), the worst threat (AI takeover vs concentration of power vs gradual disempowerment [...]

---

Outline:

(01:07) Introduction

(04:13) User Guide

(04:16) Labels

(04:55) Base Tree

(05:15) Tree features

(05:19) Pin branch overrides

(05:56) Collapse tree

(06:16) Sub-branch probabilities

(06:51) Connector thickness

(07:06) Sensitivity Analysis

(07:31) Crux Analysis

(08:48) Ranges

(09:38) Uncertainty Reduction

(10:04) Other features

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
May 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dZZD5Lviid2mALAZL/we-made-a-map-of-the-doom-debate

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

---

---