(c) Nick Bostrom, PhD
British Academy Research Fellow, Oxford University

Nick Bostrom's home page

Looking very serious now... Welcome! This page will tell you something about me and my work. You'll also find a selection of my papers in philosophy of science, ethics, transhumanism, probability theory, and some poetry.

Selected writings

Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (Academic/Nick's Pick) This book presents the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects - an important kind of bias that infests many branches of science and philosophy. We can tame these biases! There are implications for cosmology, evolutionary biology, game theory, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Doomsday argument, the Sleeping Beauty problem, the search for extraterrestrial life, the question of whether God exists, and traffic planning. Five sample chapters are available online. I've also added a brief primer. [Routledge, New York, 2002]

Self-Locating Belief in Big Worlds: Cosmology's Missing Link to Observation (Academic/Nick's Pick) Current cosmological theories say that the world is so big that all possible observations are in fact made. But then, how can such theories be tested? What could count as negative evidence? To answer that, we need to consider observation selection effects. [Penultimate draft of paper Journal of Philosophy, 2002, Vol. 99, No. 12, pp. 607-623]. [html | pdf]

The Meta-Newcomb Problem (Academic) A self-undermining variant of the Newcomb puzzle. [Analysis, 2001, Vol. 61, No. 4., pp. 309-310. [html | pdf]

The Mysteries of Self-Locating Belief and Anthropic Reasoning (Academic) NEW Summary of some of the difficulties that a theory of observation selection effects faces and a solution sketch. [Harvard Review of Philosophy, 2003, Vol. 11, Spring, pp. 59-74][pdf]

The Doomsday argument and the Self-Indication Assumption: Reply to Olum (Academic) Argues against Olum and the Self-Indication Assumption. [Preprint, Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 210, pp. 83-91 (with Milan Cirkovic)] [pdf]

The Doomsday Argument is Alive and Kicking (Academic) Have Korb and Oliver refuted the doomsday argument? No. [Preprint, Mind, 1999, Vol.108, No.431, pp. 539-550]

The Doomsday Argument, Adam & Eve, UN++, and Quantum Joe (Academic) On the Doomsday argument and related paradoxes. [Preprint, Synthese, 2001, Vol. 127, No. 3, pp. 359-387]. [html | pdf]

A Primer on the Doomsday argument (Popular) The Doomsday argument purports to prove, from basic probability theory and a few seemingly innocuous empirical premisses, that the risk that our species will go extinct soon is much greater than previously thought. My view is that the Doomsday argument is inconclusive - although not for any trivial reason. In my book, I argue that a theory of observation selection effects is needed to truly explain where it goes wrong.) [Colloquia Manilana (PDCIS), 1999, Vol. 7; reprinted in The Actuary, March 2001, and in ephilosopher.com, 2001]

Sleeping Beauty: A Synthesis of Views (Academic) NEW The Sleeping Beauty problem is an important test stone for theories about self-locating belief. I argue against both the traditional views on this problem and propose a new synthetic approach. [pdf]

Beyond the Doomsday Argument: Reply to Sowers and Further Remarks (Academic) Argues against George Sower's refutation of the doomsday argument, and outlines what I think is the real flaw. [pdf]

Cars In the Other Lane Really Do Go Faster (Popular) When driving on the motorway, have you ever wondered about (and cursed!) the fact that cars in the other lane seem to be getting ahead faster than you? One might be tempted to account for this by invoking Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will", discovered by Edward A. Murphy, Jr, in 1949). But there is a deeper explanation, based on observational selection effects... [PLUS, 2001, No. 17]

Observer-relative chances in anthropic reasoning? (Academic) A paradoxical thought experiment [Preprint, Erkenntnis, 2000, Vol. 52, pp. 93-108]

Cosmological Constant and the Final Anthropic Hypothesis (Academic) Examines the implications of recent evidence for a cosmological constant for the prospects of indefinite information processing in the multiverse. Co-authored with Milan M. Cirkovic. [Astrophysics and Space Science, 2000, Vol. 279, No. 4, pp. 675-687] [pdf]

The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (Academic/Popular/Nick's Pick) NEW An actual fable with an actual moral. [Forthcoming, The Journal of Medical Ethics] [html | pdf]

In Defense of Posthuman Dignity (Academic/Popular/Nick's Pick) NEW Brief paper, critiques a host of bioconservative pundits who believe that enhancing human capacities and extending human healthspan would undermine our dignity. [Forthcoming, Bioethics] [html | pdf] [also in Italian]

Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development (Academic) NEW Suns are illuminating and heating empty rooms, unused energy is being flushed down black holes, and our great common endowment of negentropy is being irreversibly degraded into entropy on a cosmic scale. These are resources that an advanced civilization could have used to create value-structures, such as sentient beings living worthwhile lives... [Utilitas, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 308-314] [html | pdf]

Transhumanist Values (Academic/Popular) Immensely wonderful ways of being may be located in the "posthuman realm", but we can't reach them. If we enhance ourselves using technology, however, we can go out there and realize these values. This paper proposes a transhumanist axiology. [Forthcoming in Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams, Philosophical Documentation Center Press, 2003.] [html | pdf]

Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective (Academic) A transhumanist ethical framework for public policy regarding genetic enhancements, particularly human germ-line genetic engineering [The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 493-506] [html | pdf].

The Paralysis of Aggregative Ethics in Our Possibly Infinite Universe (Academic) NEW Aggregative consequentialism (including not only utilitarianism but many other ethical views as well) faces some major problems if the cosmos is infinite, or even if it is merely possible that the cosmos is infinite. These problems have not been sufficiently recognized. This long paper examines various possible solutions and argues that they come with a cost and are only partially successful. [pdf]

Ethical Issues In Advanced Artificial Intelligence (Academic/Popular) Some cursory notes; not very in-depth. [Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical Aspects of Decision Making in Humans and in Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 2, ed. I. Smit et al., Int. Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics, 2003, pp. 12-17] [html | pdf]

The World in 2050 (Popular) Imaginary dialogue, set in the year 2050, in which three pundits debate the big issues of their time.

The Transhumanist FAQ (Popular/Nick's Pick) NEW The new, revised version 2.0 is now available! The document represents an effort to develop a broadly based consensus articulation of the basics of responsible transhumanism. Close to one hundred people collaborated with me in the creatio of this text. [also in German, Hungarian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Finnish, and Italian]. [html | pdf]

Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards (Popular/Academic/Nick's Pick) Existential risks are ways in which we could screw up badly and permanently. Interestingly, there is more scholarly work on the life-habits of the dung fly than on existential risk. In other words, an opportunity to make a contribution, perhaps. Of course, the point is not to welter in doom and gloom but to get a better understanding of where the main pitfalls are so we can develop workable strategies for not falling into them. [Journal of Evolution and Technology, 2002, vol. 9] [html | pdf]

How long before superintelligence? (Academic) This short paper, now a few years old, presents the case for thinking that we might well have superhuman artificial intelligence within the first third of this century. [Updated version of the original in Int. Jour. of Future Studies, 1998, vol. 2]

When Machines Outsmart Humans (Popular) This slightly more recent article briefly reviews the argument set out in the previous one, and notes four immediate consequences of human-level machine intelligence. [Futures, 2003, Vol. 35:7, pp. 759 - 764, where it appears as the target paper of a symposium, together with five commentaries by other people, to which I had the opportunity to reply in the next issue.]

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? (Popular/Academic/Nick's Pick) NEW This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching the posthuman stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run significant number of simulations or (variations) of their evolutionary history; (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the naïve transhumanist dogma that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. [Preprint, Philosophical Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255]. [pdf | html]

Nanotechnology Now. (Popular) On nanotechnology, progress, and transhumanism. (December 2001).

Nanomagazine.com. (Popular) On AI and nanotechnology. (October 2001).

Resonance Publications. (Popular) On philosophy, transhumanism, education, and government. On nanotechnology, progress, and transhumanism. (March 2000).

Heart of the Matter, BBC1 Television. (Popular) Script: "Against Aging". (March 2000).

Synkrotron (Popular) The final fruit and crowning completion of my earlier efforts as a practicing poet. All in Swedish! As a bonus, your browser probably won't display the last three letters of the Swedish alphabet. I've quit writing poetry - "for more there is no need." (A non-rhymed, hopefully non-recurring, relapse in English was suffered more recently; see bottom of this page.)

Introduction to Transhumanism. (POWERPOINT PRESENTATION) (Popular).

Human Reproductive Cloning from the Perspective of the Future. (Popular) Boy have I been asked the cloning question waaay too many times! But here is a statement of 27 Dec 2002.

The Epistemological Mystique of Self-Locating Belief (Academic) Intriguing, eh?

What is transhumanism? (Popular) An obsolete introduction but with a more recent postscript. [Earlier version in Sawaal, August 2000; reprinted in Doctor Tandy's First Guide to Life Extension and Transhumanity, 2001, Ria University Press, Palo Alto]

Predictions from Philosophy? (Popular) How analytical philosophers could help forecast our technological future. Argues that academic philosophers can do something useful if they become scientific generalists, polymaths, with a thorough grounding in several sciences. Also contains specific remarks about the Fermi paradox, superintelligence, sociological attractors and other things. [Colloquia Manilana (PDCIS), 2000, Vol. 7]

What to say to the Skeptic (Academic) A discussion, in dialog form, of the position of the radical skeptic, who doubts that any inductive knowledge is possible. Very early work.

Cortical Integration (Academic) Possible Solutions to the Binding and Linking Problems in Perception, Reasoning and Long Term Memory. (My MSc-thesis in computational neuroscience on the problem of finding neurologically plausible dynamical binding mechanisms in the brain for producing and storing structured representations.) [Consciousness and Cognition, 2000, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 39S-40S]

Mailing list postings. (Popular) I post occasionally to wta-talk and some other lists.

Understanding Quine's Theses of Indeterminacy (Academic) (My MA-thesis in philosophy. Boring.

Fine-Tuning Arguments in Cosmology (Academic) Our universe appears to be fine-tuned for intelligent life. There are several physical constants such that had they been even a teeny, weeny bit different than they are, then life could not have existed. Why is the world like that? Some people think this improbable coincidence points to the existence Designer. Others shrug it off as one of those brute facts that just happen to obtain. Others still suggest that a multiverse theory (where our universe is just one out of very many physically real universes) can explain the phenomenon. [Has become chapter 2 of the book] [pdf]

Observational Selection Effects and Probability (Academic) Doctoral dissertation, which presented the first mathematically explicit "observation selection theory". It has now been transfigured into a book, which I'd recommend instead.

What's new?

In January 2003, I relocated to Oxford to become a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy (leaving Yale, where I was a lecturer). I find Oxford a wonderfully beautiful and intellectually stimulating place.

My CV is updated and contains a list of Publications and Media appearances.

I'm a whole year older than I was merely twelve months ago.

Who is this Bostrom dude anyway?

It sounds cheesy, but one of the things I would want to do is make the world a better place.

How? - Indirectly, by improving our understanding of how anticipated future technologies can be turned to human good, and how the biggest risks can be avoided. I work on some of the philosophical and strategic problems that might somehow be connected to these issues. I also try to help others to make progress in this area.

Why? - By historical standards, things are now moving fast. There is a possibility that we will have molecular manufacturing or superintelligent machines. These prospects are at the same time very promising and very dangerous. In a worst-case scenario, intelligent life could go extinct. However, if we play it nice and smart, you and I or our descendants might manage to make the leap and become "posthuman persons" -- beings with vastly longer healthy lifespans and enhanced intellectual, emotional, physical, and moral capacities. Being human is great in many ways, but I don't think we are as good as we can be. There is much room for improvement. Some people dislike the idea of tampering with nature, and especially human nature. We do need to tread carefully and hold each other's hands as we walk this path. But imagine a world without involuntary suffering, aging, and disease! We're already set on a journey that might eventually take us into new realms of wonderful ways of being, thinking, feeling, and relating to each other. We need vision and the courage to dream about a better world. In order for these dreams to come true, we need to grow up. Ultimately, that may even entail shedding some of our current biological limitations. Let us hope that we may get the opportunity to truly grow up and experience life as it should have been all along.

What is needed is not just transformative technology but also the wisdom to use it well. It is time to do some serious thinking on this topic. Difficult ethical, strategic, technical, social, personal, and cultural issues must be addressed to make this vision a reality. In a bid to encourage research and constructive public debate, I co-founded the not-for-profit World Transhumanist Association in early 1998. It currently has over 2,000 members from all walks of life and chapters all over the world. There is also the beginnings of greater interest within academia to cease to ignore what is probable the biggest question of our time.

As for my own research interests, they are illustrated by texts and links on this page. I work mainly in philosophy of science, foundations of probability theory, ethics, and on transhumanism. Beside philosophy, I also have a background in physics, computational neuroscience, mathematical logic, and artificial intelligence. (I did three and a half full-time programs simultaneously in my Swedish undergraduate days - a national record I think.) There is so much to learn!

In earlier phases of my life, I've been a painter and a poet. I was also doing stand-up comedy for a while on the vibrant London circuit. There is not enough time.

Three reasons for making aging a favorite complaint

1. The weather is only bad some of the time but one is always getting older.

2. By whining now, one might already have amortized the loss of hair, memory, and mobility by the time it happens.

3. On a more serious note, aging causes human misery (far more than all the wars in human history). 150,000 people die every day, about two-thirds from age-related disease. There are those who are complacent about this outrage because members of our species have always aged so it is "natural". But those are really bad excuses which I think will be forgotten the moment we find a cure. (Extending human health-span is just one part of the transhumanist project. But we need to stay alive to see the rest!)

(photo courtesy BBC)