Eliezer Yudkowsky quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Yudkowsky Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Eliezer Yudkowsky on Wise Famous Quotes.

You're eleven years old, Mr. Potter!" she said in a harsh whisper.
"And therefore subhuman. Sorry ... for a moment there, I forgot.

But what happens after you break - that, too, is part of being a hero.

Don't trust thoughts because you think them, but because they obey specific trustworthy rules.

If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy.

You can't talk to thermodynamics and you can't pray to probability theory. You

Evil done in the name of good. Evil done in the name of evil. Which is worse?

Also Harry was in love. It would be a three-way wedding: him, the Time-Turner, and Professor Quirrell.

As you would be kind to others, be kinder to yourself as well.

By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

A Gryffindor would say that people don't become who they should be, because they're afraid.

A random key does not open a random lock just because they are "both random.

You cannot obtain more truth for a fixed proposition by arguing it. To improve our beliefs, we must necessarily change our beliefs.

If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.

I am going to tear apart your pathetic little magical remnant of the Dark Ages into pieces smaller than its constituent atoms.

Clever kids in Ravenclaw, evil kids in Slytherin, wannabe heroes in Gryffindor, and everyone who does the actual work in Hufflepuff.

Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.

The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.

If you don't sign up your kids for cryonics then you are a lousy parent.

If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular.

A single Lie That Must Be Protected can block someone's progress into advanced rationality. No, it's not harmless fun.

A true rationalist ought to be effective in the real world.

He was personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society he grew up in.

To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization.

If what you believe doesn't depend om what you see, you've been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.

Trying and getting hurt can't possibly be worse for you than being ... stuck.

I only want power so I can get books.

Reality is always lawful," said Harry, "even if we don't know the law.

I am not sure how to explain it, except that - truth matters to us.

People who have time to plan are scary.

Apparently people who were in books actually sounded like a book when they talked. This was quite the surprising discovery.

Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it.

It's okay to bribe people with books, right?

I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.

Um. I'm going to have to eat a kitten, aren't I? Oh god, I'm going to have to eat a kitten. The

Slowly, elaborately, Akon's head dropped to the table with a dull thud. Why couldn't we have been alone in the universe?

Hey, Draco, you know what I bet is even better for becoming friends than exchanging secrets? Committing murder.

Don't let your life be steered by your reluctance to do a little extra thinking.

No rescuer hath the rescuer, Godric Gryffindor had written. No Lord hath the champion, no mother and no father, only nothingness above.

I don't care where I live, so long as there's a roof to keep the rain off my books, and high-speed Internet access.

Doing worse with more knowledge means you are doing something very wrong.

When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.

I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution.

You couldn't leave your home planet while it still contained a place like Azkaban.
You had to stay and fight.

Stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

That which the truth nourishes should thrive.

It wasn't cheating, but it was Science, which was almost as good.

To die was not to leave the world, not to escape somewhere else; it was the simultaneous change of every piece of yourself into nothing.

There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model.

A friend isn't someone you use once and then throw away, a friend is someone you use over and over again.

You need one whole hell of a lot of rationality before it does anything but lead you into new and interesting mistakes.

I've lived the lives of all the characters in all my books, and all their mighty wisdom thunders in my head.

After all, if you had the complete decision process, you could run it as an AI, and I'd be coding it up right now.

You see, Miss Granger, people do not grow up because of time, people grow up when they are placed in grownup situations.

Hermione's eyes lit up with a terrible light of helpfulness and something in the back of Harry's brain screamed in desperate humiliation.

I wasn't one of the dreamers, back then. I was just wrapped up in my private blanket of hurt.

Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.

There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.

My successes already accomplished have mostly been taking existing science and getting people to apply it in their everyday lives.

Professor McGonagall, the Headmaster set fire to a chicken!"
"He wha-

To figure out a strange plot, look at what happens, then ask who benefits.

Life is mundane, and does not need a weird explanation.

When the basic problem is your ignorance, clever strategies for bypassing your ignorance lead to shooting yourself in the foot.

When you walk past a bookshop you haven't visited before, you have to go in and look around. That's the family rule.

What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.

Note to self: Overthrow government of magical Britain at earliest convenience.

There is never an idea so true that it's wrong to criticize any argument that supports it.

a rationalist isn't ever certain of anything

It was a rare brain that could feel strongly about anything, if it wasn't close in space, close in time, near at hand, within easy reach ...

If you can't criticise, you can't optimise.

If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars.

Singularitarians are the munchkins of the real world. We just ignore all the usual dungeons and head straight for the cycle of infinite wish spells.

If you know your destination, you are already there.

I want to carry in my heart forever the key word of the Olympics - 'passion.'

World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.

I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?

The golden coins might have been his, but they were still stolen - self-stolen? Auto-thieved?

There's something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness ...

The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills.

Only God can tell a truly plausible lie.

To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.

(...) Where are you trying to go?"
Harry hesitated. "I'm not really sure," he said.
"Then perhaps you are already there.

He really really really shouldn't have done that. Amazing how much more obvious that became one second after it was too late.

Look, I don't have enough time to turn everyone away from the Dark Side and I've got to ask where the Light can gain the most advantage the fastest -

Logic stays true, wherever you may go,
So logic never tells you where you live.

I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow was the Final Dawn, the last sunrise before the Earth and Sun are reshaped into computing elements.

Emergence is popular because it is the junk food of curiosity. You

The world's greatest fool may say the sun is shining, but that doesn't make it dark out.

When something is universal enough in our everyday lives, we take it for granted to the point of forgetting it exists.

What is deadlier than hate, and flows without limit?
Indifference.

Moore's Law of Mad Science: Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point.

To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.

It was a fractal of ugliness, disgusting at every level of self-similarity.

belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If

Reversed stupidity is not intelligence

I CAN DO MAGIC! FEAR ME, LAWS OF PHYSICS, I'M COMING TO VIOLATE YOU!

I have no great fondness for the universe, but I do live there

Nestled up against the wall, where Professor Quirrell had stumbled, glistened the crushed remains of a beautiful blue beetle.

But it is cute. It's such a boy thing to do.
Drop dead.
Aw, you say the most romantic things.

If there is no black and white, there is yet lighter and darker, and not all grays are the same.

He felt wretched at this point, he'd just told off Gandalf essentially, and Dumbledore's kindness was only making him feel worse.