When OpenAI boss Sam Altman backed calls this month to slow the development of advanced AI over fears it could wipe out humanity, it showed how seriously Silicon Valley's elite are now taking the threat.
uncertain
elite → back → threat
For Eliezer Yudkowsky, however, the alarm has been ringing for decades.
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alarm → ring → decades
The prominent AI theorist has argued for years that building machines smarter than humans won't merely cost jobs or upend society – it will kill everyone on Earth.
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it → argue → Earth
That warning is spelled out in the title of his bestselling 2025 book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, co-written with fellow AI doomsayer Nate Soares.
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Everyone → spell → Soares
But in recent days, attention has turned from their predictions about humanity's future to the unconventional lives they each seemingly lead.
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they → turn → lives
Last week, Soares's relationship with OnlyFans creator Aella thrust his private life into the spotlight, alongside accounts of orgies, extreme kinks and a sex-focused event called 'SlutCon.'
And Yudkowsky has an eyebrow-raising public history of his own.
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Yudkowsky → thrust → own
A dating profile unearthed by the Daily Mail describes him as having a 'strong sexually sadistic streak,' while he later joked about owning sex slaves.
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he → unearth → slaves
Yudkowsky has also suggested abortion may not amount to murder until around 18 months after birth.
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abortion → suggest → birth
He also advocated bombing rogue AI data centers if necessary, even at the risk of nuclear war.
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He → advocate → war
Prominent AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky believes the race to build machines smarter than humans will kill everyone on Earth (pictured during a 2023 TED Talk)
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race → believe → Talk
OnlyFans creator Aella has been pictured with Yudkowsky and also linked to another AI doomsayer, Nate Soares
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Aella → picture → doomsayer
In an archived OkCupid profile from 2012, Yudkowsky described himself as polyamorous and juggling one primary relationship and two others.
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Yudkowsky → describe → relationship
He listed orgasm denial and tickling among his fetishes, wrote that he had a 'strong sexually sadistic streak' and encouraged women who were both 'sexually masochistic' and interested in rationalism to contact him.
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who → list → him
A year later, he claimed online that he had 'acquired a sex slave' who would earn orgasms by completing math assignments.
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who → claim → assignments
He later said the experiment 'didn't work out at all,' while rejecting claims that he maintained a harem of submissive 'math pets.'
Then in June, OnlyFans creator Aella posted a bizarre and suggestive photo to X showing Yudkowsky among five men standing behind her and staring down as she poses on a bed.
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she → say → bed
The image was not accompanied by a caption.
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image → accompany → caption
Elsewhere, his writings and digital footprint have ranged beyond sex into extreme questions of morality.
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writings → range → morality
In a widely debated 2007 post on LessWrong, Yudkowsky asked readers to choose between torturing one person for 50 years or giving an unimaginably large number of people a momentary dust speck in the eye.
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Yudkowsky → debate → eye
He said torture was the 'obvious' choice because the tiny harms to everyone else would add up to something worse.
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harms → say → something
A suggestive image shared by Aella on X in June appears to show Yudkowsky standing behind her.
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Yudkowsky → share → her
The photo was posted without a caption
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photo → post → caption
In a dating profile from 2012, he described himself as polyamorous and someone with a 'strong sexually sadistic streak'
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he → describe → streak
He listed his fetishes as 'orgasm denial' and 'tickling'
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He → list → denial
'I am not a student of developmental psychology,' he wrote, 'but there's no way an infant has qualia [conscious experience] at birth; their brains are less reflective than most animals you eat.
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you → write → animals
Other provocative remarks included a 2016 Facebook post in which he argued that a 'pretty' 21-year-old virgin should sell her virginity if someone was willing to pay an enormous sum for it.
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someone → include → it
'I can't imagine telling any woman on the face of the Earth that she ought to start her life $120,000 poorer because she set fire to a 12-by-10 array of 50x stacks of $20 bills in order to have sex with me,' he wrote.
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he → imagine → me
Five years later, he wrote that declining sexual desire showed society had become bored with 'vanilla sex' and needed to embrace more BDSM to 'survive.'
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society → write → BDSM
He later said he was joking.
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he → say → ?
His reading recommendations have raised eyebrows too.
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recommendations → raise → eyebrows
Yudkowsky enthusiastically recommended the sci-fi novel Perilous Waif to his followers in 2017.
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Yudkowsky → recommend → 2017
The book centers on an underage girl and contains sexual material some reviewers have described as disturbing.
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reviewers → center → material
The controversy was covered in a 2024 Medium article.
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controversy → cover → article
He once wrote that declining sexual desire showed society had become bored with 'vanilla sex' and needed to embrace more BDSM to 'survive.'
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society → write → BDSM
He later said he was joking
He has also faced a more serious allegation last year that he began a sexual relationship with a teenager before they turned 18.
The claim was later amplified by the so-called Zizians, a violent anti-AI group whose members have been linked to six deaths across three states.
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members → say → states
But the young person at the center of the allegation has since denied being exploited by Yudkowsky, saying they felt they had been used as a pawn to damage Yudkowsky’s reputation.
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they → deny → reputation
After Rolling Stone contacted him for comment, Yudkowsky also posted a lengthy denial on X, writing: 'To the best of my knowledge, I have never in my life had sex with anyone under the age of 18.'
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I → contact → 18
In the same post, he said he would be reluctant to intervene if he knew someone who was in a relationship with someone underage.
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who → say → someone
'It would not be my job to run their lives,' he wrote.
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he → run → lives
But Yudkowsky's influence extends far beyond his provocative online history.
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influence → extend → history
His ideas helped shape early thinking around advanced AI, with Sam Altman later crediting Yudkowsky as an important influence in inspiring OpenAI.
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Altman → help → OpenAI
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
