Robin Hanson
Robin Hanson | |
|---|---|
 Hanson in 2011 | |
| Born | Robin Dale Hanson August 28, 1959 |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Economist |
| Organization(s) | George Mason University Future of Humanity Institute (former) |
| 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 an associate professor of economics at George Mason University[2] and a former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.[3][4] 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)[5] used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson was Chief Scientist[6]), and has conducted research on signalling. He also proposed the Great Filter hypothesis.[3]
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,[7] 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.[8] 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.[3]
He is married to Peggy Jackson, a hospice social worker,[9] and has two children.[10] He is the son of a Southern Baptist preacher.[11] Hanson has elected to have his brain cryonically preserved after death.[9] He was involved early on in the creation of the Rationalist community through online weblogs.[12]
Views
[edit]
Prediction markets
[edit]Robin Hanson is credited with originating the concept of the Policy Analysis Market (PAM),[10] a DARPA project to implement a market for betting on future developments in the Middle East. Hanson wrote that the cancellation of FutureMAP followed controversy over betting on terrorist attacks, after the Senate had voted to cut funding over privacy concerns about the related Total Information Awareness program.[13] He also created and supports a proposed system of government called futarchy, in which policies would be determined by prediction markets.[9]
Nate Silver has described Hanson's view on prediction markets, saying "[Hanson's] argument for these is pretty simple: They ensure that we have a financial stake in being accurate when we make forecasts, rather than just trying to look good to our peers."[14]
Sex
[edit]In a 2018 blog post on the incel movement, Hanson compared concern about income inequality with concern about unequal access to sex.[15] He wrote that he found it puzzling that similar concern had not been shown for incels as for low-income individuals. Some journalists, such as Alexandra Scaggs in the Financial Times, criticized Hanson for discussing sex as if it was a commodity.[16]
Hanson has been criticized for his writings relating to sexual relationships and women. "If you've ever heard of George Mason University economist Robin Hanson, there's a good chance it was because he wrote something creepy", Slate columnist Jordan Weissmann wrote in 2018.[15] In an article on bias against women in economics, Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith cited a blog post by Hanson comparing cuckoldry to "gentle silent rape",[17] lamenting that there was no retraction and no outcry from fellow economists.[18] In The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino described Hanson's 2018 blog post as a "flippantly dehumanizing thought experiment".[19] Hanson later denied proposing an entitlement to sex and said he was more interested in sexual inequality generally than in the incel activist community.[20]
Cryonics
[edit]Hanson is an advocate for cryonics and a member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics organization that preserves human remains in the hope of future revival.[9]
Great Filter
[edit]Hanson coined the term Great Filter, referring to whatever prevents "dead matter" from becoming an expanding and observable intelligent civilization, as a possible resolution of the Fermi Paradox. He was motivated to seek his doctorate so that his theories would reach a wider audience.[11]
Books
[edit]Hanson has written two books. The Age of Em (2016)[21][22] concerns his views on brain emulation and its eventual impact on society.[23] The Elephant in the Brain (2018), coauthored with Kevin Simler, looks at mental blind spots of society and individuals.[24][25]
References
[edit]- ↑ Hanson, Robin (August 28, 2009). "Today I'm 50." Overcoming Bias.
- ↑ "Robin Hanson". George Mason University. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
- 1 2 3 Hanson, Robin. "Robin Hanson's Bio". Retrieved September 23, 2026.
- ↑ Robin Hanson: My best idea was prediction markets. Archived July 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule
- ↑ Consensus Point. "About Us." http://www.consensuspoint.com/about/ Archived December 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Hanson, Robin. "Robin Hanson's Home Page".
- ↑ "Four puzzles in information and politics: Product bans, informed voters, social insurance, and persistent disagreement". ProQuest 304435127. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 Howley, Kerry (July 7, 2010). "Until Cryonics Do Us Part". The New York Times. Retrieved September 9, 2010.
- 1 2 Andrew Orlowski, Meet the 'transhumanists' behind the Pentagon terror casino, The Register, August 5, 2003 (accessed September 17, 2012)
- 1 2 Kahn, Jeremy (September 15, 2003). "The Man Who Would Have Us Bet On Terrorism – Not to Mention Discard Democracy and Cryogenically Freeze Our Heads – May Have a Point (About The Betting, We Mean)". Fortune. p. 179. Archived from the original on January 8, 2007.
- ↑ Metz, Cade (February 13, 2021). "Silicon Valley's Safe Space". The New York Times. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University who helped create the blogs that spawned the Rationalist movement.
- ↑ Hanson, Robin. "The Policy Analysis Market (and FutureMAP) Archive".
- ↑ Silver, Nate (2012). The Signal and the Noise. New York, NY: The Penguin Press. pp. 201–202. ISBN 978-1594204111.
- 1 2 Weissmann, Jordan (April 29, 2018). "Is Robin Hanson America's Creepiest Economist?". Slate.
- ↑ Scaggs, Alexandra (May 8, 2018). "'Sex redistribution' and the means of reproduction". Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022.
- ↑ Hanson, Robin. "Gentle Silent Rape".
- ↑ Smith, Noah (November 21, 2014). "Economics Is a Dismal Science for Women". Bloomberg Opinion.
- ↑ Tolentino, Jia (May 15, 2018). "The Rage of the Incels".
- ↑ Hanson, Robin (June 27, 2018). "Responses to Sex Inequality Critics". Overcoming Bias.
- ↑ Hanson, Robin (2016). The Age of Em: Work, love and life when robots rule the Earth. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198754626.
- ↑ "The Age of Em, a book". Retrieved June 8, 2016.
- ↑ "Robin Hanson on "The Age of Em"". Future Thinkers. July 5, 2016.
- ↑ Hanson, Robin (February 2017). "The Elephant in the Brain". Overcoming Bias.
- ↑ "Biography". Robin D. Hanson. George Mason University.
External links
[edit]
- Overcoming Bias (Hanson's blog)
- GMU Page
- Roberts, Russ. "Robin Hanson Podcasts". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.
- Bloggingheads.tv: interviews on Costly Truth-Seeking and The Economics of Artificial Intelligence (video & audio)
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- NoDoom – Hanson's critique of the Doomsday argument
- Malthus v. the Singularity NY Times' John Tierney discusses Hanson's paper on the technological singularity
