History Creator / EliezerYudkowsky

* ReferenceOverdosed: Eliezer loves his {{ShoutOut}}s. ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' has [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ShoutOut/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality at least one in most chapters]], while the first half of "The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover" has several per paragraph. Even ''Literature/ThreeWorldsCollide'' includes VisualNovel/FateStayNight in a list of "classic" literature.

%%* GeniusBonus [[invoked]] [Zero Context Example. Please write up an actual example before uncommenting.]

* ReferenceOverdosed: Eliezer loves his {{ShoutOut}}s.

* GeniusBonus [[invoked]]

* GeniusBonus

* MindScrewdriver: "The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover" is this for ''Literature/PermutationCity'' by Creator/GregEgan.

* GeniusBonus: [[invoked]] Among them are some of the more obscure references.

* GenreAdultery: Almost all of his works, whether [[FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality fanfic]] or [[Literature/ThreeWorldsCollide original]], are highly philosophical {{Author Tract}}s. And then there's ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5731071/1/Peggy_Susie Peggy Susie]]'', which is merely [[spoiler: a ''Calvin and Hobbes'' fic]] and parody of ''Film/TheTerminator''... with no philosophical elements whatsoever.

* OldShame: It's still possible to find some really awful fiction that he wrote on {{USENET}} many years ago.
* OneOfUs: Partakes from time to time in discussions on TV Tropes, usually regarding his own writing.

Most of his fictional works are {{Author Tract}}s, albeit ones that [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment many find]] good and entertaining.

Occasionally [[OneOfUs drops by our very own forums]].

* AuthorTract: As mentioned above, his theories and [[AuthorAvatar avatars]] crop up a fair bit in his fictional works.

* OneOfUs: Partakes from time to time in discussions here, usually regarding his own writing.

-> ''"[[TheSingularity Singularitarians]] are the {{munchkin}}s of the real world. We just ignore [[LevelGrinding all the usual dungeons]] and head straight for the [[LoopholeAbuse cycle of]] [[GameBreaker infinite wish spells.]]"''

Author of ThreeWorldsCollide and HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality, the shorter works [[{{FanficRecs/HaruhiSuzumiya}} Trust in God/The Riddle of Kyon]] and [[FanficRecs/MegaCrossover The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover]], and [[http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction various other fiction]]. Helped found and is probably the most prolific poster to the blog/discussion site LessWrong, and is currently writing a book on rationality.

!!!Tropes describing Yudkowsky or his work:
* AffablyEvil: Has tossed around "super villain" as a potential hobby more than once.
* [[{{UsefulNotes/Atheism}} Atheist]]: Doesn't mind calling religion "insanity", but believes in promoting [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1e/raising_the_sanity_waterline/ rational thinking in general]] and letting atheism follow.
* BadassBoast: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_onesided/ "Unfortunately the universe doesn't agree with me. We'll see which one of us is still standing when this is over."]]
* BiTheWay: Is straight, but would take [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1r80?c=1 a pill that would make him bisexual]] because it would raise his ability to have fun.
* ChildProdigy: He was one.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Seeks to prevent it.
* {{Fanboy}}: Isn't one, but has them despite trying to [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ln/resist_the_happy_death_spiral/ warn against being one]].
* GenreAdultery: Almost all of his works, whether [[FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality fanfic]] or [[ThreeWorldsCollide original]], are highly philosophical {{Author Tract}}s. And then there's ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5731071/1/Peggy_Susie Peggy Susie]]'', which is merely [[spoiler: a ''Calvin and Hobbes'' fic]] and parody of ''TheTerminator''... with no philosophical elements whatsoever.
* HannibalLecture: In the [[http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox AI-Box]] [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/up/shut_up_and_do_the_impossible/ experiment]], presumably.
* HumanPopsicle: His membership with the [[http://www.cryonics.org/ Cryonics Institute]] is his backup plan if he dies before achieving proper immortality.
* ImmortalitySeeker: Though he hopes never to die at all, in case he does, he wants to be cryonically frozen and then reanimated.
* InsufferableGenius: Can come across as this.
* ItsAllAboutMe: [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Maybe.]] But he doesn't leave much wiggle room to argue with his viewpoints when he folds the very foundations of 'rationality' into his personal philosophy and names his blog collab LessWrong.
* JewishAndNerdy
* ManipulativeBastard: His explanation of [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/up/shut_up_and_do_the_impossible/nxw how he could "win" the AI-Box experiment]].
-->Part of the ''real'' reason that I wanted to run the original AI-Box Experiment, is that I thought I had an ability that I could never test in real life. Was I really making a sacrifice for my ethics, or just overestimating my own ability? The AI-Box Experiment let me test that.
* MeasuringTheMarigolds: Criticized and averted; he wants people to be able to see [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/or/joy_in_the_merely_real/ joy in the 'merely' real world]].
* OldShame: The document [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/yd/the_thing_that_i_protect/qze Creating Friendly AI]], along with much of what he wrote before fully [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ue/the_magnitude_of_his_own_folly/ recognizing the dangers of AI]].
** It's still possible to find some really awful fiction that he wrote on {{USENET}} many years ago.

* {{Protectorate}}: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/yd/the_thing_that_i_protect/ The Thing That I Protect]].
* PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/ A rare proponent]].
* ScaleOfScientificSins: Plans to commit most of them, but backs away from [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/x7/cant_unbirth_a_child/ creating life]].
* ScienceHero: Openly uses the word "hero" to [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mc/normal_cryonics/ describe himself]].
* SingleIssueWonk: He has this thing about death, in that he... doesn't really see it's purpose. If you do think that death is part of the natural order of things, then he tends to bring out the soapbox a little.
* TheSingularity: He [[strike:is convinced of a coming technological singularity]] is determined to help bring about a positive singularity regardless of the [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/uk/beyond_the_reach_of_god/ uncertainty of success]].
* TalkingYourWayOut: The AI-box experiment.
* {{Transhumanism}}: He is a transhumanist.
* TrueArtIsAngsty: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/xi/serious_stories/ Discussed/invoked/Deconstructed]]:
-->''In one sense, it's clear that we do not want to live the sort of lives that are depicted in most stories that human authors have written so far. Think of the truly great stories, the ones that have become legendary for being the very best of the best of their genre: Literature/TheIliad, RomeoAndJuliet, Film/TheGodfather, ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}, PlanescapeTorment, the second season of Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer, or '''that''' ending in {{Tsukihime}}. Is there a single story on the list that isn't tragic? Ordinarily, we prefer pleasure to pain, joy to sadness, and life to death. Yet it seems we prefer to empathize with hurting, sad, dead characters. Or stories about happier people aren't serious, aren't artistically great enough to be worthy of praise - but then why selectively praise stories containing unhappy people? Is there some hidden benefit to us in it? [...] You simply don't optimize a story the way you optimize a real life. The best story and the best life will be produced by different criteria. [...] There is another rule of writing which states that stories have to shout. A human brain is a long way off those printed letters. Every event and feeling needs to take place at ten times natural volume in order to have any impact at all. You must not try to make your characters behave or feel realistically —especially, you must not faithfully reproduce your own past experiences—because without exaggeration, they'll be too quiet to rise from the page. Maybe all the Great Stories are tragedies because happiness can't shout loud enough to a human reader.''
* WeDoTheImpossible: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/65/money_the_unit_of_caring/ "I specialize... in the impossible questions business."]]. See also [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/un/on_doing_the_impossible/ On Doing the Impossible]].
* TheWorldIsJustAwesome

!!!Tropes related to Yudkowsky's writing:
* AuthorTract: As mentioned above, his theories and [[AuthorAvatar avatars]] crop up a fair bit in his fictional works.
* DisobeyThisMessage: Discussed in a number of posts.
-->... if you think you would ''totally'' wear that [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/mb/lonely_dissent/ clown suit]], then don't be too proud of that either! It just means that you need to make an effort in the ''opposite'' direction to avoid dissenting too easily.
* DrugsAreBad: Averted -- Although Yudkowsky apparently [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1r80?c=1 doesn't want]] to try mind-altering drugs, he is [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/66/rationality_common_interest_of_many_causes/ in favor]] of drug legalization.
* EatsBabies: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1scb?context=2 Presented without comment.]]
* HoldingOutForAHero: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/mc/to_lead_you_must_stand_up/ To Lead, You Must Stand Up]], [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/un/on_doing_the_impossible/ On Doing the Impossible]].
* HollywoodEvolution: Something he tries to counteract in his discussions about the limitations on evolution, most notably in explaining why {{Storm}} doesn't make sense.
* LiteralGenie: What an improperly designed AI [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ld/the_hidden_complexity_of_wishes/ would]] [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/tc/unnatural_categories/ be]].
* LivingForeverIsAwesome: He definitely [[http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified wants nobody to die anymore]].
* TheMultiverse: The quantum-physics version is discussed in detail in a [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/r8/and_the_winner_is_manyworlds/ sequence of posts]]; [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ws/for_the_people_who_are_still_alive/ For the People Who Are Still Alive]] takes a still broader view.
* TranshumanTreachery: Discussed in [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/xd/growing_up_is_hard/ Growing Up is Hard]] as one reason to develop AI before human enhancement and {{brain uploading}}.
* TheWorldIsNotReady

-->...if you think you would ''totally'' wear that [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/mb/lonely_dissent/ clown suit]], then don't be too proud of that either! It just means that you need to make an effort in the ''opposite'' direction to avoid dissenting too easily.

* WeDoTheImpossible: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/65/money_the_unit_of_caring/ "I specialize...in the impossible questions business."]]. See also [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/un/on_doing_the_impossible/ On Doing the Impossible]].

-> ''"Singularitarians are the {{munchkin}}s of the real world. We just ignore [[LevelGrinding all the usual dungeons]] and head straight for the [[LoopholeAbuse cycle of]] [[GameBreaker infinite wish spells.]]"''

* EatsBabies: [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1scb?context=2 Presented without comment.]]

-->''In one sense, it's clear that we do not want to live the sort of lives that are depicted in most stories that human authors have written so far. Think of the truly great stories, the ones that have become legendary for being the very best of the best of their genre: ''Literature/TheIliad'', ''RomeoAndJuliet'', ''Film/TheGodfather'', ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', ''PlanescapeTorment'', the second season of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', or '''that''' ending in ''{{Tsukihime}}''. Is there a single story on the list that isn't tragic? Ordinarily, we prefer pleasure to pain, joy to sadness, and life to death. Yet it seems we prefer to empathize with hurting, sad, dead characters. Or stories about happier people aren't serious, aren't artistically great enough to be worthy of praise - but then why selectively praise stories containing unhappy people? Is there some hidden benefit to us in it? [...] You simply don't optimize a story the way you optimize a real life. The best story and the best life will be produced by different criteria. [...] There is another rule of writing which states that stories have to shout. A human brain is a long way off those printed letters. Every event and feeling needs to take place at ten times natural volume in order to have any impact at all. You must not try to make your characters behave or feel realistically —especially, you must not faithfully reproduce your own past experiences—because without exaggeration, they'll be too quiet to rise from the page. Maybe all the Great Stories are tragedies because happiness can't shout loud enough to a human reader.''

* GenreAdultery: Almost all of his works, whether [[FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality fanfic]] or [[ThreeWorldsCollide original]], are highly philosophical {{Author Tract}}s. And then there's ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5731071/1/Peggy_Susie Peggy Susie]]'', which is merely [[spoiler: a ''CalvinAndHobbes'' fic]] and parody of ''TheTerminator''... with no philosophical elements whatsoever.

His day job is with the [[http://http://intelligence.org/ Machine Intelligence Research Institute]], specifically working on how to make an {{AI}} that ''won't'' just [[http://singinst.org/riskintro/index.html kill us all accidentally]], and make [[AIIsACrapshoot AI less of a crapshoot]].

** It's still possible to find some really awful fiction that he wrote on {{USENET}} many years ago. (No, I won't link to it.)

* [[ScaleOfScientificSins Scale of Scientific "Sins"]]: Plans to commit most of them, but backs away from [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/x7/cant_unbirth_a_child/ creating life]].

* {{Derailing}}: He has a habit of going down the list of tvtropes fanfic recommendations and leaving reviews on ff.net exclaiming how amazing it is that the author’s story is just as or almost as good as his own writing while dropping his story’s [[HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality name]]. He probably reads these stories but considering that in roughly 30% of these reviews he quotes lines of these stories out of context in order to draw [[BrokenAesop false parallels]] to [[ShamelessSelfPromotion his philosophies]], he may simply be skimming them.

* AffablyEvil: Has tossed around "super villain" as a potential hobby more than once, and some of his morality proofs are a little... concerning, if he can even comprehend choosing between [[BlueAndOrangeMorality damning 10 million people to get dust in their eyes, or 12 hours of torture for one person.]] The fact he has a near-perfect record in the AI-Box experiment of his own design doesn't help one bit.

-->''In one sense, it's clear that we do not want to live the sort of lives that are depicted in most stories that human authors have written so far. Think of the truly great stories, the ones that have become legendary for being the very best of the best of their genre: ''Literature/TheIliad'', ''RomeoAndJuliet'', ''Film/TheGodfather'', ''ComicBook/{Watchmen}}'', ''PlanescapeTorment'', the second season of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', or '''that''' ending in ''{{Tsukihime}}''. Is there a single story on the list that isn't tragic? Ordinarily, we prefer pleasure to pain, joy to sadness, and life to death. Yet it seems we prefer to empathize with hurting, sad, dead characters. Or stories about happier people aren't serious, aren't artistically great enough to be worthy of praise - but then why selectively praise stories containing unhappy people? Is there some hidden benefit to us in it? [...] You simply don't optimize a story the way you optimize a real life. The best story and the best life will be produced by different criteria. [...] There is another rule of writing which states that stories have to shout. A human brain is a long way off those printed letters. Every event and feeling needs to take place at ten times natural volume in order to have any impact at all. You must not try to make your characters behave or feel realistically —especially, you must not faithfully reproduce your own past experiences—because without exaggeration, they'll be too quiet to rise from the page. Maybe all the Great Stories are tragedies because happiness can't shout loud enough to a human reader.''

His day job is with the [[http://singinst.org/ Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence]], specifically working on how to make an {{AI}} that ''won't'' just [[http://singinst.org/riskintro/index.html kill us all accidentally]], and make [[AIIsACrapshoot AI less of a crapshoot]].

* PlatoIsAMoron: [[http://www.sl4.org/wiki/SoYouWantToBeASeedAIProgrammer His treatment of AI researchers with actual credentials]].

* PlatoIsAMoron: [[http://www.sl4.org/wiki/SoYouWantToBeASeedAIProgrammer His treatment of AI researchers with an actual credentials]].

->''Let me say that Eliezer may have already done more to save the world than most people in history.''
-->-- From a [[http://lesswrong.com//lw/2lr/the_importance_of_selfdoubt/2ia7?c=1 blog comment]].

* [[DeadLittleSister Dead Little Brother]]: Sort of; His little brother [[http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda died]] at the age of 19, but although it may have made Yudkowsky's search for immortality more personal, he was already an atheist, [[LivingForeverIsAwesome immortalist]] and an advocate for cryonics before this tragic incident.