“My p(doom) is still lower than most industry people’s.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Marcus's p(doom) is lower than that of most AI industry people.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, Why my p(doom) has risen, dramatically, paragraph 78.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-why-my-pdoom-has-risen-dramatically-961123-a1
We recorded 19 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2025-07-15. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- My p(doom)
- still lower than most industry people’s
- I am at maybe 3% now
Our interpretation
- Treat approximately 3% as Marcus's stated comparison value, rather than independently assessing his private belief.
- Read 'most' as more than half of people working in the AI industry, rather than a selection of prominent executives or safety researchers.
- Compare estimates of substantially equivalent catastrophic outcomes under comparable time horizons.
- Read the ongoing comparison as an early-July 2025 snapshot before publication. Older expert surveys are context unless evidence establishes that they represent this population and period.
Counts as supported if: A suitably representative contemporaneous survey establishes that more than half of AI industry people assigned a probability above approximately 3% to a comparable doom outcome.
Counts as contradicted if: A suitably representative contemporaneous survey establishes that no more than half assigned a probability above approximately 3%, with uncertainty small enough to distinguish the majority threshold.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
An older AI-researcher survey reported a 5% median for extremely bad outcomes, above Marcus's approximately 3%. That is relevant context, but it does not establish what most AI industry people believed in July 2025. The searched surveys do not match both the population and period, and the meaning of doom also varies.
Limitations
- A researcher sample is not automatically representative of the AI industry.
- Older beliefs cannot be assumed unchanged.
- Different catastrophic outcomes and time horizons produce different probability estimates.
Evidence (2 items)
Context only: AI Impacts,
was 5% (mean 9%).
Why it matters here: The result makes Marcus's comparison plausible for this older research sample. It does not establish the distribution among AI industry people in July 2025, and the question conditions on advanced AI.
- Publisher
- AI Impacts
- Kind of source
- Preprint, not peer reviewed
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Pew Research Center,
experts who responded
Why it matters here: Pew explicitly cautions against generalizing its expert sample to all experts. Its 2024 fieldwork also does not measure the July 2025 comparison.
- Publisher
- Pew Research Center
- Kind of source
- Independent measurement
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Representative survey data from around July 2025 showing the share of AI industry workers above approximately 3% under a comparable outcome definition and time horizon.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, Why my p(doom) has risen, dramatically
My p(doom) is still lower than most industry people’s.
- Where
- paragraph 78
- Published
- 2025-07-15
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-why-my-pdoom-has-risen-dramatically-961123-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-why-my-pdoom-has-risen-dramatically-961123-a1.