THE MAN WITH A 99.99% P(DOOM) WOULDN'T SAY THE NUMBER
“If we create general superintelligences, I don't see a good outcome long-term for humanity. So there is X-risk, existential risk, everyone's dead.”
The 99.99% figure frequently attached to Yampolskiy is host Lex Fridman's characterization from the episode introduction ('He argues that there's almost 100% chance that AGI will eventually destroy human civilization… in the case of Roman, at 99.99 and many more nines percent'), never a number Yampolskiy himself stated.
When Lex Fridman asked Yampolskiy directly for a probability ('in the next hundred years'), he answered with a 'perpetual safety machine' analogy instead of a number — a full-text search of the official transcript confirms he utters no p(doom) number anywhere. The famous 99.99% figure comes from Fridman's own introduction, not from Yampolskiy's mouth. The dodge is the story: the man with the highest attributed p(doom) won't put a number on the record when asked directly.
SOURCE
ORIGINAL SOURCERoman Yampolskiy: AI Safety | Lex Fridman Podcast #431 (transcript)lexfridman.com