p(doom)
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Mathematical notation for the probability (p) of an event (more formally written as P(doom)). Originated on the LessWrong message board around 2010, later popularized by Eliezer Yudkowsky and other AI safety researchers.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /piː duːm/
Noun
p(doom) (countable and uncountable, plural p(doom)s)
- (artificial intelligence, originally humorous) The probability of existentially catastrophic outcomes (doom) as a result of misaligned artificial intelligence, especially one's personal estimate for such an outcome, usually given as a percentage value.
- My p(doom) is 15%.
- 2023 December 6, Kevin Roose, “Silicon Valley Confronts a Grim New A.I. Metric”, in The New York Times[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 7 December 2023:
- I’ve been to two tech events this year where a stranger has asked for my p(doom) as casually as if they were asking for directions to the bathroom.
- 2024 March 18, Andrew Marantz, “О.К., Doomer”, in The New Yorker, page 42:
- At gatherings like these, it’s not uncommon to hear someone strike up a conversation by asking, “What are your timelines?” or "What's your p(doom)?”
- 2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York City: Penguin Press, →ISBN:
- Those at the extreme end of the AI safety spectrum with the highest levels of p(doom) grew increasingly unsettled by the seeming uncomplicated optimism with which [Sam] Altman and the rest of the company viewed this history.
- 2025, Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, “An Introduction to AI Hype”, in The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want[2], Random House, →ISBN:
- And the cartoonish connotations are apt: just like such fictional battles, p(doom) estimates are based in fantasy rather than data or empirical fact.
- 2025 June 2, Adrian Horton, “Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment”, in The Guardian[3], →ISSN:
- Mountainhead plays out less like a drama between four tenuously connected, very rich friends, and more like a random word generator of tech and finance bro jargon – decel (deceleration, as in AI), p(doom) (the probability of an AI apocalypse), first principles.
Usage notes
Despite the statistical framing the metric is highly subjective and usually not based on data; there is also a lack of consensus on the precise meaning of doom and AI.