foom

Interjection

1. The sound of a muffled explosion.
   • And FOOM-FOOM! the two engines burst together into life...1983, Richard Bach, Biplane
   • Those flat-trajectory shells would skim straight in, making a roaring sound in the dark: Foom! Foom! Foom!2000, James Bradley, Ron Powers, Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima

Noun

foom (plural fooms)

1. A sudden increase in artificial intelligence such that an AI system becomes extremely powerful.
   • There are some scenarios in which private AI research wouldn't be nationalized: •An unexpected AI foom before anyone realizes what was coming.2013, Brian Tomasik, International Cooperation vs. AI Arms Race, page 2
   • Some advocates of this foom scenario say that there is an as-yet-undiscovered but very powerful set of related architectural innovations for AI system design, a set that one team could find first and then keep secret from others for long enough.2016, Robin Hanson, The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth, →ISBN

Verb

foom (third-person singular simple present fooms, present participle fooming, simple past and past participle foomed)

1. To exhibit an AI foom.
   • The reason an AI can foom so much faster than its society is that an AI can change its basic mental architecture,and humans can’t.2013, Robin Hanson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate, page 216