p(doom) is the probability someone assigns to advanced AI causing human extinction or a permanent loss of human control.

What is the average p(doom) of AI researchers?

In the 2023 AI Impacts survey of 2,778 AI researchers, the median chance given to an outcome as bad as human extinction was 5%.

p(doom) Calculator: What Is Your p(doom)?

1. AI that can do almost any job a human can is built by 207065%2. There are strong reasons to give such AI goals and let it act on its own80%3. Making it reliably safe turns out much harder than making it powerful40%4. Unsafe systems get used widely anyway65%5. Some of them take power away from humans on a large scale40%6. Humanity cannot recover from that95%

Your p(doom)

5.1%

Worried, like many researchers. Closest to the median AI researcher (and Joe Carlsmith, 2021).

What does p(doom) mean?

p(doom) is shorthand for "probability of doom": how likely someone thinks it is that advanced AI leads to human extinction or a permanent loss of control. It started as a joke among AI researchers and became a standard question in interviews. The calculator splits the question into steps, following philosopher Joe Carlsmith's 2021 report "Is Power-Seeking AI an Existential Risk?", and multiplies them. His own answer then was about 5%.

Famous p(doom) numbers

Who	p(doom)	Context
Eliezer Yudkowsky AI safety researcher	well above 90%	has said for years that the default outcome is extinction
Dario Amodei CEO of Anthropic	10 to 25%	chance things go "really, really badly", 2023
Geoffrey Hinton Nobel laureate, "godfather of AI"	10 to 20%	chance of human extinction within 30 years, said in late 2024
Elon Musk xAI, Tesla	about 10 to 20%	said in 2024
Lina Khan former US FTC chair	15%	said in 2023
Vitalik Buterin Ethereum co-founder	about 10%	said in 2023
AI researchers (median) AI Impacts survey of 2,778 authors, 2023	5%	chance of an outcome as bad as human extinction
Yann LeCun Turing Award winner	close to 0%	calls doom fears preposterous

Figures as reported in interviews and surveys; people update their numbers, so treat them as snapshots.

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RoboDoom is for information and entertainment. Job risk scores are our own estimates from published research on AI task exposure, not predictions about any person or employer. Full disclaimer