FOOM
Foom: a hypothetical scenario of fast, irreversible capability blowup.
What it commits you to
FOOM is the informal term, popularized by Eliezer Yudkowsky, for a takeoff process so fast and so hard to interrupt that the actors involved lose the ability to steer it. The concept exists because it isolates the property that makes pre-commitment necessary: the cost of failing to decide in advance is borne by everyone, and the decision cannot be revisited. Critics treat it as a thought experiment with no empirical support.
Which realms lean on this
Every realm has to keep a system honest. These are the terms that say out loud what the other kinds keep implicit.
alignment · 5 realms — The Benthamite Foundry, The Existential Wilds, The Longview Foundry, The Stoic Ramparts, The Ubuntu Weave.
See also
Fast takeoff
alignmentTakeoff fast enough that human oversight cannot meaningfully intervene.
Takeoff
alignmentThe process by which a system rapidly moves past the human capability frontier.
Structural transition
alignmentA change in the structure of society, economy or state that recurs across many very different causes.
Existential risk
alignmentA risk that permanently curtails humanity's future, including by ending it.