MANIFOLD
Who will endorse Yudkowsky and Soares' book?
182
Ṁ11kṀ57k
resolved Mar 16
Resolved
YES
The Guardian
Resolved
YES
Forbes
Resolved
YES
CNN
Resolved
YES
San Francisco Chronicle
Resolved
YES
Yoshua Bengio
Resolved
YES
Vitalik Buterin
Resolved
YES
The New Yorker
Resolved
YES
Carl Feynman
Resolved
YES
Booklist
Resolved
YES
Matthew Yglesias
Resolved
YES
The Times
Resolved
YES
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Resolved
YES
Max Tegmark
Resolved
YES
Emmett Shear
Resolved
YES
Bruce Schneier
Resolved
YES
George Church
Resolved
YES
Scott Aaronson
Resolved
YES
Daniel Kokotajlo
Resolved
YES
Ben Bernanke
Resolved
N/A
Publishers Weekly

Resolution criteria

Each answer option will resolve to "Yes" if the individual or organization publicly endorses "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. An endorsement is defined as a public statement of support or recommendation for the book, which can be verified through reputable sources such as official press releases, interviews, or social media posts. A repost of someone else's opinion counts (e.g., if OpenAI retweets a recommendation from Sam Altman, that counts as an endorsement). For media, unless an "editorial" is added, endorsement in a feature article counts. A mixed opinion that overall recommends the book and can be cited for a blurb counts. If no such endorsement is made by the resolution date, the answer will resolve to "No." The market will close on December 16, 2025, three months after the book's release date, and will resolve based on endorsements made up to that date.

Background

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an American artificial intelligence researcher and writer, known for his work on AI safety and decision theory. He is the founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Nate Soares is the president of MIRI and has co-authored several papers on AI safety. Their upcoming book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, is scheduled for publication by Little, Brown and Company on September 16, 2025.

Market participants are asked to not insider-trade on No.

  • Update 2025-09-16 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - "Manifold" refers to the company (official accounts/announcements), not user-generated content on the platform. Only endorsements from official Manifold channels count for this answer.

  • Added: for TV stations, the content on the air counts, not just the website contents.

Market context
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I'll send you an M$5k bounty for causing a Yes resolution of any non-yellow answer.

@ms Time to resolve the remaining options. Thanks!

Less than five as far as I was able to find

@ms was it more than zero? If so, who?

@ms could you please resolve the remaining ones

@ItsMe will do! Still need to check the remaining ones.

Idk. I don't like a No resolution because of "For doomer-porn aficionados, If Anyone Builds It is appointment reading". This is a recommendation for a certain audience, and could be cited as blurbs if the publisher wanted to sell the book to that audience, regardless of what the authors would want. Maybe N/A would be better? (It obviously won't resolve to Yes, that would be against the spirit of the question.)

@ms can we get a resolution

Clankers are evil I agree with yudkowsky here

Included in "The Best Books of the Year So Far" ("Each week, our editors and critics choose the most captivating, notable, brilliant, surprising, absorbing, weird, thought-provoking, and talked-about reads. Check back every Wednesday for new fiction and nonfiction recommendations.")

I'll send you an M$5k bounty for causing a Yes resolution of any non-yellow answer.

Jack Clark left a surprisingly positive review ahead of The Curve, though I wouldn't particularly trust him to be consistent or to actually want to spread the ideas of the book

If you’re a Yes holder, you can just do things! Ask people for public recommendations of the book, submit op-eds to the media, etc.; for the mana, of course, and not because of the dignity points

Apparently they gave a starred review a month ago and no one noticed

"This is a remarkable book. This book is worth reading. This is an important introduction to a set of ideas that will define our future in the coming years. Controversial, hotly debated, but you made the most powerful case that you could for your point of view and people need to reckon with it"

https://carnegieendowment.org/podcasts/the-world-unpacked/will-ai-kill-us-all-nate-soares-on-his-controversial-bestseller?lang=en

bought Ṁ10 YES

Steve Bannon WTF

idk about this one. “The book is fascinating”

https://x.com/miriberkeley/status/1969483367277092973?s=46

I think I want to resolve this to Yes?

I know Will MacAskill is not an option but he didn’t like the book:

https://open.substack.com/pub/willmacaskill/p/a-short-review-of-if-anyone-builds?r=di5yu&utm_medium=ios

"alarmingly compelling" but no recommendation to read

@ms Why does this not count as "support"?

@metachirality I don't think it's a statement of support of the book. The review is generally mixed. From the market description:

"An endorsement is defined as a public statement of support or recommendation for the book, which can be verified through reputable sources such as official press releases, interviews, or social media posts. A repost of someone else's opinion counts (e.g., if OpenAI retweets a recommendation from Sam Altman, that counts as an endorsement). For media, unless an "editorial" is added, endorsement in a feature article counts. A mixed opinion that overall recommends the book and can be cited for a blurb counts."

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