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Max Tegmark

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Max Tegmark
Image
Tegmark in 2024
Born
Max Erik Shapiro

(1967-05-05) 5 May 1967 (age 58)
Stockholm, Sweden[not verified in body]
Alma materStockholm School of Economics (BA)
Royal Institute of Technology (MSE)
University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD)
Scientific career
FieldsCosmology, physics, machine learning
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Future of Life Institute
ThesisProbes of the Early Universe (1994)
Doctoral advisorJoseph Silk
Signature
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Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967[1][better source needed]) is a Swedish-American academic physicist, machine learning researcher, and published popular author.[2][better source needed] Originally a cosmologist—Tegmark was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2012 for his contributions to that field[3]—his work has moved toward a focus on AI, and he is a current professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is president of the independent Future of Life Institute,[4][5][better source needed] whose stated mission is to "steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefiting life."[6] Toward the aim of its mitigating existential risks from AI, the Institute has received funding from Musk.[7][8][9][needs update]

Tegmark is also known for his book Life 3.0, which addresses what the world might look like as artificial intelligence continues to develop.[not verified in body] He and his organizations are an academic proponent of risk-aware perspectives on AI[7][9].

Early life

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Max Erik Tegmark was born Max Erik Shapiro[10][11][12]: p. no. unstated [better source needed] in Stockholm, Sweden,[citation needed] on 5 May 1967,[1][better source needed] to Karin Tegmark[clarification needed] and mathematician Harold S. Shapiro.[11][full citation needed][better source needed] While studying at the University of California at Berkeley, he adopted his mother's surname Tegmark, as there were many Shapiros in astronomy, including one of his professors.[12]: p. no. unstated [full citation needed][better source needed] While in high school, Tegmark and a friend, Magnus Bodin, created and sold a word processor, Teddy, written in machine code for the Swedish eight-bit computer ABC 80 as a summer project, which was marketed "in a very modest manner" by Liber Läromedel,[10][better source needed] and—per Tegman's autobiographical description—he also coded a 3D Tetris-like game called Frac.[12]: p.55 [better source needed]

Tegmark left Sweden after receiving his B.A. in economics in 1989 at the Stockholm School of Economics,[citation needed] and an M.S.E in engineering physics from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 1990.[citation needed] He next studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his M.A. in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1994 under the supervision of Joseph Silk.[citation needed][13][independent source needed]

Career

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Tegmark began an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania,[when?][citation needed] receiving tenure in 2003.[citation needed] In 2004, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of physics.[citation needed][needs update]

As of 2023, Tegmark was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[4][better source needed] and is president of the independent Future of Life Institute,[5][better source needed] which he co-founded with Anthony Aguirre, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[9]

Research

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An earlier phase of Tegman's research focused on cosmology, wherein he combined theoretical and experimental work (the latter, often in collaboration) to constrain cosmological models and their free parameters.[citation needed] He has developed data analysis tools based on information theory and applied them to cosmic microwave background experiments such as COBE, QMAP, and WMAP,[citation needed] and to galaxy redshift surveys such as the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, the 2dF Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.[citation needed]

Tegmark, Daniel Eisenstein, and Wayne Hu, writing in The Astrophysical Journal in 1998, introduced[original research?] the idea of using baryon acoustic oscillations as a standard ruler[jargon] (here and following, see list of publications).[citation needed][14][better source needed] His 2000 paper in Physical Review E, on quantum decoherence of neurons, concluded that decoherence is too rapid for Roger Penrose's orchestrated objective reduction ("quantum microtubule") model of consciousness to be viable.[15] Working with Angelica de Oliveira-Costa and Andrew Hamilton, Tegmark and his collaborators reported, in Physical Review D in 2003, discovery[original research?] of the anomalous multipole alignment in the WMAP data,[jargon] sometimes referred to as the "axis of evil".[citation needed][14][better source needed] With Anthony Aguirre, he developed[original research?] what he described in their 2011 Physical Review D paper, as "A Cosmological Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics".[citation needed] Tegmark also formulated[original research?] "The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis", in a paper by that name published in Foundations of Physics in 2008, wherein he postulated the physical existance of all structures predicted mathematically.[16][better source needed][17][full citation needed][18]

As of this date,[when?] Tegmark's research focuses on machine learning.[citation needed] In April 2024, Tegmark, and a team of 7—including MIT/CalTech trainees Ziming Liu, Yixuan Wang, and Sachin Vaidya, and CalTech mathematician Thomas Hou, MIT physicist Marin Soljačić, and Northeastern University physicist James Halverson and mathematician Fabian Ruehle—presented a multiyear effort on their development of a new class of neural networks, Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs), which differ fundamentally from the current, most widely applied multilayer perceptron design of networks; theirs is a new application based on the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem that had been rejected decades earlier as impossible to apply to machine learning.[19][20]

As described in their organizational promotional materials, Tegmark led a research project at MIT, beginning in 2020, focused on the application of machine learning to the classification of news reports.[21] They called the AI-driven news aggregator "Improving the News", and it involved early participants Khaled Shehada, Mindy Long, and Arun Wongprommoon (toward the initial aggregator), and Tim Woolley (on scaling).[21][non-primary source needed][22][non-primary source needed]

To maintain and scale the work, Tegmark and his co-worker and wife, Meia Chita-Tegmark, founded the eponymous Improve the News Foundation (ITN) as an "apolitical" 501(c)(3) in October 2020, with the stated mission of "[e]mpower[ing] people to rise above controversies and understand the world in a nuanced way."[22] The ITN product was rebranded as "Verity News" in 2023.[citation needed]

Future of Life Institute

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Under Tegmark's founding leadership, the Future of Life Institute has pursued a stated mission to "steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefiting life."[6] It has subsequently aimed, as variously described, at dedicating itself to "research aimed at 'mitigate[ing] existential risks facing humanity'... specifically those related to our ongoing progress towards AI... approach[ing] human capabilities",[7] and more generally to researching "issues... related to the challenges technology presents... to ultimately develop a more optimistic vision for how humanity can take control of the future."[9][7][23][verification needed] A co-founding faculty member was University of California, Santa Cruz professor Anthony Aguirre, and its board-level leadership has included Elon Musk, Skype- and Kazaa-founder Jaan Tallinn, as well as celebrities (Alan Alda and Morgan Freeman), and individual graduate students (including his wife, Meia Chita-Tegmark, then a Boston University PhD-student).[9] Tegmark and the organization are academic proponents of approaches and views that are aware and wrestle with the potential risks associated with the development of AI;[7] the Institute has received substantial funding from Musk.[7]

Controversy

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In 2023, Tegmark was the focus of a controversy when he was alleged to have signed a letter of intent on behalf of the Future of Life Institute for a $100,000 grant—ultimately rejected—to far-right media outlet Nya Dagbladet, an outlet for which Tegmark's brother wrote,[24][25] an allegation to which the Institute formally responded.[26] Tegmark later said that the Institute "ultimately decided to reject it because of what our subsequent due diligence uncovered", that they rejected it long before the media became involved, and that the institute "finds Nazi, neo-Nazi or pro-Nazi groups or ideologies despicable and would never knowingly support them".[27] An official statement from the Future of Life Institute further expands on this: "FLI finds groups or ideologies espousing antisemitism, white supremacy, or racism despicable and would never knowingly support any such group".[26]

Awards and recognition

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Tegmark was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2012 for, according to the citation, "his contributions to cosmology, including precision measurements from cosmic microwave background and galaxy clustering data, tests of inflation and gravitation theories, and the development of a new technology for low-frequency radio interferometry".[3]

He was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science's Gold Medal in 2019 for, according to the citation, "his contributions to our understanding of humanity's place in the cosmos and the opportunities and risks associated with artificial intelligence. He has courageously tackled these existential questions in his research and, in a commendable way, succeeded in communicating the issues to a wider public."[28]

In 2023, Time named Tegmark one of the 100 most influential people in AI.[29]

Published works

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Books

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  • Tegmark, Max (2014). Our Mathematical Universe.[full citation needed] In this work, Tegmark suggests that his theory is simple in its having no free parameters at all, and that in structures complex enough to contain self-aware substructures (SASs), these SASs will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically "real" world.[according to whom?][citation needed]

Tegmark's "mathematical universe" hypothesis has been criticized by mathematical physicist Edward Frenkel (and other scientists[citation needed])[weasel words] as being both overly speculative and unscientific in nature—Frenkel characterizing it as closer to "science fiction and mysticism" than "the realm of science."[30]

Select articles

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Media activities

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Personal life

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Tegmark married astrophysicist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa in 1997, and divorced in 2009. They have two sons.[citation needed][42][independent source needed] On August 5, 2012, Tegmark married Meia Chita.[43][independent source needed]

Tegmark's brother is the journalist Per Shapiro [sv], who has written for the far-right, populist[clarification needed] Swedish newspaper Nya Dagbladet.[24][citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Tegmark, Max & Oxford PoC Staff (8 December 2025). "Tegmark" (notable contributor biography). Oxford University Philosophy of Cosmology (Oxford PoC) program (philosophy-of-cosmology.ox.ac.uk). Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  2. ^ Tegmark, Max (12 December 2023). "The Universes of Max Tegmark" (Tegmark group MIT homepage). MIT.edu. Retrieved 12 December 2023.[independent source needed]
  3. ^ a b "APS Fellow Archive". American Physical Society. Archived from the original on 9 May 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2013.
  4. ^ a b Tegmark, Max (15 March 2023). "Max Tegmark—Professor of Physics" (Tegmark MIT faculty homepage). MIT.edu. Cambridge, MA: MIT Department of Physics. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 15 April 2023.[independent source needed]
  5. ^ a b Tegmark, Max (27 December 2023). "About Us: Max Tegmark / President..." (org. leader autobiography). FutureofLife.org. Cambridge, MA: Future of Life Institute. Retrieved 27 December 2023.[independent source needed]
  6. ^ a b FoLI Staff (8 December 2025). "About Us—Ourt Mission". FutureofLife.org. Retrieved 8 December 2025. The Future of Life Institute's mission is to steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefiting life. Note, as of that date, Max Tegmark was the President of FoLI.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Etherington, Darrell (15 January 2015). "Elon Musk Donates $10M To Make Sure AI Doesn't Go The Way Of Skynet". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  8. ^ While mentioning existential risk as a perspective of Musk's, the Rebecca Strong source that follows states the Institute's aim as:

    To research the issues and launch initiatives related to the challenges technology presents, and to ultimately develop a more optimistic vision for how humanity can take control of the future.

    see Strong (15 January 2015), op. cit. (The Clark article in Bloomberg is broadly inaccessible.)
  9. ^ a b c d e Strong, Rebecca (15 January 2015). "3 Things to Know About the Elon Musk-Backed Future of Life Institute". BostInno (bostinno.streetwise.co). Boston, MA: Streetwise Media. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2025. Now, Musk is serving on the scientific advisory board at the... Institute and has also donated $10 million to the organization... [stating in a quoted X post that he was] 'Funding research on artificial intelligence safety...'. / 'Hopefully this grant program will help shift our focus from building things just because we can, toward building things because they are good for us in the long term,' said institute co-founder Meia Chita-Tegmark on the group's website. / The organization was founded by MIT physics professor Max Tegmark, along with UC Santa Cruz professor Anthony Aguirre. The pair also founded the Foundational Questions Institute, a research organization that explores the foundations of physics and cosmology. / Other key people with the... Institute include Jaan Tallinn, a founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa...; Boston University PhD candidate Meia Chita-Tegmark; and Harvard University PhD candidate Viktoriya Krakovna. / Two... actors serve on the advisory board: Morgan Freeman and Alan Alda.
  10. ^ a b Bodin, Magnus (21 July 2011). "Teddy—1984". x42.com (personal website of Magnus Bodin ). self-published. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2023.[better source needed]
  11. ^ a b Sveriges Befolkning 1980 [Population of Sweden in 1980] (CD-ROM). 1.02. Sundbyberg, Sweden: Sveriges Släktforskarförbund [Federation of Swedish Genealogical Societies]. 2004. Event occurs at unspecified time. Retrieved 8 December 2025.[full citation needed][non-primary source needed] For a description of this geneological database, see Thorsell, Elisabeth (1 September 2004). "A New CD: The Population of Sweden in 1980". Swedish American Genealogist. 24 (3): 22. Retrieved 8 December 2025.[non-primary source needed]
  12. ^ a b c Tegmark, Max (2014). Our Mathematical Universe.[full citation needed][independent source needed]
  13. ^ Tegmark, Max (28 May 2013). "Faculty: Max Tegmark—Professor". MIT.edu. Archived from the original (faculty autobiography) on 28 May 2013. Retrieved 8 December 2025.[independent source needed]
  14. ^ a b Tegmark, Max. "Philosophy of Cosmology". University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2016.[independent source needed]
  15. ^ Seife, Charles (4 February 2000). "Cold Numbers Unmake the Quantum Mind". Science. 287 (5454): 791. doi:10.1126/science.287.5454.791. PMID 10691548. S2CID 33761196.
  16. ^ Butterfield, Jeremy (17 June 2014). "Our Mathematical Universe?". arXiv:1406.4348v1 [physics.hist-ph]. The DOI for this un-refereed, posted draft is 10.48550/arXiv.1406.4348.[better source needed]
  17. ^ a b The author offered a short (3 pp.) discussion of his 50 pp. Foundations article in September 2007, in New Scientist, which appeared as a cover story, see Tegmark, M. (15 September 2007). "Shut Up and Calculate". New Scientist. No. 2621. Retrieved 8 December 2025.[full citation needed] For an arXiv PDF of the same, see this link, accessed the same date as the preceding citation.
  18. ^ The title of the short discussion by Tegmark of his Foundations paper is a stated allusion to N. David Mermin's use if the same phrase, see Tegmark (15 September 2007), op. cit., and Mermin, N. David (1 May 2004). "Could Feynman Have Said This?". Physics Today. doi:10.1063/1.1768652N. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  19. ^ Nadis, Steve (11 September 2024). "Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable". Quanta Magazine. Archived from the original on 11 September 2024. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  20. ^ Liu, Z; Wang, Y; Vaidya, S; Ruehle, R; Halverson, J; Soljačić, Marin; Hou, TY & Tegmark M (23 April 2025). KAN: Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks. The Thirteenth International Conference on Learning Representations (ILCR). ICLR 2025 (ICLR.cc). Singapore. Retrieved 8 December 2025.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Liu was the author of this work from MIT, as featured in the article by Steve Nadis in Quanta Magazine; Wang, the second author, presented the work at the conference. For the arXiv version preceding the publication, see this link, accessed same date as indicated.
  21. ^ a b ITN Staff (14 July 2023). "Frequently Asked Questions—Who's Behind This?". Improve the News (ImprovetheNews.org). Archived from the original on 14 July 2023. Retrieved 8 December 2025.[non-primary source needed]
  22. ^ a b Verity Staff (8 December 2025). "About: What is Verity? ... Who is Behind Verity?". Verity News (Verity.News). Retrieved 8 December 2025.[non-primary source needed]
  23. ^ Clark, Jack (9 June 2015). "The Future of Computers is the Mind of a Toddler". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  24. ^ a b Dalsbro, Anders & Leman, Jonathan (16 January 2023) [2023-01-13]. "Elon Musk-Funded Nonprofit Run by MIT Professor Offered to Finance Swedish Pro-Nazi Group". Expo.se. Retrieved 8 December 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ Hume, Tim (19 January 2023). "Elon Musk-Backed Non-Profit Offered $100K Grant to 'Pro-Nazi' Media Outlet". Vice News. Archived from the original on 3 May 2023. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  26. ^ a b FoLI Staff (18 January 2023). "Statement on a Controversial Rejected Grant Proposal". Future of Life Institute (FoLI). Retrieved 14 June 2023. Note, as of that date, Max Tegmark was the President of FoLI.
  27. ^ Nordmark, Jens & Tegmark [,Alex] (16 January 2023) [13 January 2023]. "[Linkpost] FLI Alleged to Have Offered Funding to Far Right Foundation [See deeply buried reply, from Tegmark, beginning "Here's an official statement from FLI on rejecting the Nya Dagbladet Foundation grant proposal...]". Forum.EffectiveAltruism.org. Retrieved 8 December 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ "Hans Dalborg, Daniel Ek, Martin Lorentzon, Lena Olving and Max Tegmark to be awarded IVA's Gold Medals". Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  29. ^ "TIME100 AI 2023: Max Tegmark". Time. 7 September 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  30. ^ Frenkel, Edward (14 February 2014). "Ad Infinitum". The New York Times.
  31. ^ Tegmark, Max (18 November 2006). "Max Tegmark forecasts the future". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 9 June 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2012.
  32. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Forum, Zooming Out". BBC Radio 4. 26 April 2014. Archived from the original on 15 April 2023. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
  33. ^ Hawking, Stephen; Tegmark, Max; Russell, Stuart (19 April 2014). "Transcending Complacency On Superintelligent Machines". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 8 March 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  34. ^ Chichester, Sarah M. (10 June 2014). "The Perpetual Earth Program". Nytheatre.com. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014.
  35. ^ "The Principle (2014)". IMDb. Archived from the original on 26 March 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  36. ^ "The Multiverse & You (& You & You & You...)". Sam Harris. 23 September 2015. Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  37. ^ Tegmark, Max (17 June 2017). Effective Altruism Global: Effective Altruism, Existential Risk and Existential Hope. YouTube.com. Retrieved 19 May 2018.[non-primary source needed][independent source needed] For archived versions, see Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine.
  38. ^ Harris, Sam (27 August 2017). "The Future of Intelligence)". Sam Harris. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  39. ^ "Max Tegmark: Life 3.0". Lex Fridman. 19 April 2018. Archived from the original on 30 September 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  40. ^ Max Tegmark: AI and Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #155 (Podcast). Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  41. ^ Max Tegmark: The Case for Halting AI Development | Lex Fridman Podcast #371 (Podcast). 13 April 2023. Archived from the original on 13 April 2023. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
  42. ^ "Max Tegmark Homepage". Space.mit.edu. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 1 November 2012.[independent source needed]
  43. ^ "Welcome to Meia and Max's wedding". The Universes of Max Tegmark. Space.mit.edu. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2014.[independent source needed]
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