Back
Robin Hanson - Wikipedia
referenceCredibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: Wikipedia
Useful background reference for understanding a prominent heterodox thinker whose ideas on prediction markets, whole brain emulation, and AI skepticism frequently appear in AI safety discourse.
Metadata
Importance: 35/100wiki pagereference
Summary
Wikipedia biography of Robin Hanson, an economist and researcher at George Mason University known for unconventional ideas about prediction markets, em (whole brain emulation) economics, and critiques of mainstream rationality. His work on forecasting, signaling, and long-run technological futures is frequently referenced in AI safety and rationalist communities.
Key Points
- •Hanson is known for developing prediction markets and the concept of 'futarchy' - governance by prediction markets
- •His book 'The Age of Em' models an economy dominated by whole brain emulations, relevant to AI/AGI transition scenarios
- •He is a founding contributor to Overcoming Bias blog and associated with the rationalist/EA community
- •His work on signaling challenges conventional views on education, medicine, and social behavior
- •He has engaged critically with AI risk arguments, representing a skeptical perspective on near-term existential risk
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Robin Hanson | Person | 53.0 |
1 FactBase fact citing this source
| Entity | Property | Value | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robin Hanson | Birth Year | 1959 | — |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Apr 7, 202612 KB
Robin Hanson - Wikipedia
Jump to content
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American economist and author (born 1959)
For the Swedish swimmer, see Robin Hanson (swimmer) .
Robin Hanson Hanson in 2011 Born Robin Dale Hanson
( 1959-08-28 ) August 28, 1959 (age 66) Alma mater University of California, Irvine ( BS )
University of Chicago ( MS , MA )
California Institute of Technology ( PhD )
Occupation Economist Organization(s) George Mason University
Future of Humanity Institute Known for FutureMAP , LMSR, Foresight Institute Notable work The Elephant in the Brain
The Age of Em
Robin Dale Hanson (born August 28, 1959 [ 1 ] ) is an American economist and author. He is associate professor of economics at George Mason University [ 2 ] and a former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University . [ 3 ] Hanson is known for his work on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute's Foresight Exchange and DARPA 's FutureMAP project. He invented market scoring rules like LMSR ( Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule ) [ 4 ] used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson is Chief Scientist [ 5 ] ), and has conducted research on signalling . He also proposed the Great Filter hypothesis.
Background
[ edit ]
Hanson received a BS in physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1981, an MS in physics and an MA in Conceptual Foundations of Science from the University of Chicago in 1984, and a PhD in social science from Caltech in 1997 for his thesis titled Four puzzles in information and politics: Product bans, informed voters, social insurance, and persistent disagreement . [ 6 ] Before getting his PhD he researched artificial intelligence , Bayesian statistics and hypertext publishing at Lockheed , NASA , and elsewhere. In addition, he started the first internal corporate prediction market at Xanadu in 1990. [ 7 ]
He is married to Peggy Jackson, a hospice social worker , [ 8 ] and has two children. [ 9 ] He is the son of a Southern Baptist preacher. [ 10 ] Hanson has elected to have his brain cryonically preserved in the event of medical death. [ 8 ] He was involved early on in the creation of the Rationalist community through online weblogs. [ 11 ]
Views
[ edit ]
Robin Hanson discussing alternative economic-legal systems at the 2019 Institute of Cryptoanarchy Conference
Tyler Cowen 's book Discover Your Inner Economist includes a fairly detailed discussion of Hanson's views:
Robin has strange ideas ... My other friend and colleague Bryan Caplan put it best: "When the typical economist tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is 'Eh, maybe.' Then
... (truncated, 12 KB total)Resource ID:
0cb374656cef0098 | Stable ID: sid_oFISd5W7mw