Word.ws English Dictionary

paperclip maximizer

paperclip maximizer noun: a hypothetical artificial intelligence whose goal is to produce as many paperclips as possible and which achieves this by converting all matter in the universe into paperclips.

Noun

paperclip maximizer (plural paperclip maximizers)

  1. A hypothetical artificial intelligence whose goal is to produce as many paperclips as possible and which achieves this by converting all matter in the universe into paperclips.
    • The problem of managing powerful systems that lack human values is exemplified by “the paperclip maximizer,” a scenario that the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom raised in 2003.[2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker
    • An instructive and oft-repeated example introduced by Bostrom (2003c) is the paperclip maximizer. The seed AI is given the goal of producing as many paperclips as it can.[2016, Olle Häggström, Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity, Oxford University Press, page 116

Examples of paperclip maximizer in a sentence

  • A psychopathic leader in control of a sophisticated ANI system portends a far greater risk in the near term than a paperclip maximizer.2017, Amir Husain, The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence, Souvenir Press:
  • If the Paperclip Maximizer destroys the world for a silly goal, why don’t you and I destroy the world, given our goals can be less than benign?2019, Ben Orlin, Change Is the Only Constant: The Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap World, New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, page...

Forms of paperclip maximizer

pluralpaperclip maximizers
alternative formpaper-clip maximizer
alternative formpaper clip maximizer

Origin of paperclip maximizer

Described by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003.

Questions about paperclip maximizer

What does paperclip maximizer mean?
Paperclip maximizer means a hypothetical artificial intelligence whose goal is to produce as many paperclips as possible and which achieves this by converting all matter in the universe into paperclips.
How do you use paperclip maximizer in a sentence?
A psychopathic leader in control of a sophisticated ANI system portends a far greater risk in the near term than a paperclip maximizer.
What part of speech is paperclip maximizer?
Paperclip maximizer is a noun.
What is the plural of paperclip maximizer?
The plural of paperclip maximizer is paperclip maximizers.

Words near paperclip maximizer in the dictionary

  1. paperchases
  2. paperchip
  3. paperchips
  4. paperclay
  5. paperclip
  6. paperclip maximizer
  7. paperclip maximizers
  8. paperclipped
  9. paperclipping
  10. paperclips
  11. papercraft

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paperclip maximizer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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