Yudkowsky & Soares change the book cover | The book is a NYT bestseller
42
1kṀ7352
Oct 16
30%
The book cover is NOT changed, the book is a NYT bestseller
9%
The book cover is NOT changed, the book is NOT a NYT bestseller
39%
The book cover is changed, the book is a NYT bestseller
22%
The book cover is changed, the book is NOT a NYT bestseller
0.7%
Other

Resolution criteria

This market will resolve based on two conditions:

  1. Book Cover Change: If Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares change the cover of their book, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," before its release on September 16, 2025, this condition is met. Confirmation can be obtained from the publisher's official website or major book retailers. Insignificant changes to the cover and small adjustments (such as a font change or small movements of the layout) won't count.

  2. New York Times Bestseller: If the book appears on the New York Times Best Sellers list within four weeks of its release, this condition is met. The list is available at The New York Times Best Sellers.

The market will resolve to one of the following outcomes:

  • The book cover is NOT changed, the book is a NYT bestseller

  • The book cover is NOT changed, the book is NOT a NYT bestseller

  • The book cover is changed, the book is a NYT bestseller

  • The book cover is changed, the book is NOT a NYT bestseller

If the book is not released by December 31, 2025, the market will resolve as N/A.

Background

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

  • Update 2025-05-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has specified that there are distinct US and UK versions of the book cover. These specific versions, as shown in the creator's linked comment, will serve as the baseline for determining if the Book Cover Change condition is met.

  • Update 2025-05-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): If the US cover is changed to match the established UK cover, this will qualify as a Book Cover Change.

  • Update 2025-05-17 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * The Book Cover Change condition refers specifically to the US version of the book cover.

    • A change to the UK cover (or other regional covers) alone will not satisfy this condition if the US cover remains unchanged from its established baseline.

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What if the U.K. cover changes but the U.S. one doesn’t? How would that resolve?

@HWH I’ll clarify that the book cover in question is the US cover.

I created a market just for the book cover: https://manifold.markets/GauravYadav/front-cover-of-if-anyone-builds-it?r=R2F1cmF2WWFkYXY

https://manifold.markets/acertain/will-yudkowsky-and-soares-book-be-a
conditional market

Will Yudkowsky and Soares' book be a NYT bestseller? under various conditions
Each question will resolve: - YES if the book is a NYT bestseller and the event in the question's title happened - NO if the book is not a NYT bestseller and the event in the question's title happened - N/A if the event in the question's title doesn't happen

IMO the conditional probabilities are different:

As far as we know is this the current cover more or less?

@TheAllMemeingEye US, UK covers:

@ms thanks 👍

does it count as changing the cover if they make the weird amateurish impact font US one match the more professional looking UK one?

@TheAllMemeingEye a font change alone won't count

@ms I mean does it count if they totally scrap the US cover and use the current UK cover for both?

@TheAllMemeingEye it does, though seems unlikely (I think different publishing houses would own the copyright to the two covers)

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