--- title: What Do the Frontier Labs Actually Believe? | daily.dev description: The ideology behind frontier AI labs is best understood through 'TESCREAL,' a term Emile Torres coined with Timnit Gebru in late 2022. It stands for... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-the-frontier-labs-actually-believe--zk2nhlma4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What Do the Frontier Labs Actually Believe? | daily.dev og:description: The ideology behind frontier AI labs is best understood through 'TESCREAL,' a term Emile Torres coined with Timnit Gebru in late 2022. It stands for... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-the-frontier-labs-actually-believe--zk2nhlma4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zK2NHLMA4.png og:image:alt: What Do the Frontier Labs Actually Believe? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What Do the Frontier Labs Actually Believe? **[Metadata](https://daily.dev/sources/muratbuffalo)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The ideology behind frontier AI labs is best understood through 'TESCREAL,' a term Emile Torres coined with Timnit Gebru in late 2022. It stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism and Longtermism, with transhumanism as the backbone. Torres argues everyone in this cluster, including doomers like Eliezer Yudkowsky, shares the same endpoint: a cosmic post-human future, disagreeing only on how fast and safely to get there. Demis Hassabis has floated a Dyson swarm by the early 2030s, and Sam Altman has called covering the planet in datacenters a likely outcome of superintelligence. Torres distinguishes 'terminal extinction' from 'final extinction,' arguing the TESCREAL project tolerates the former as long as humans produce post-human successors. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What does TESCREAL stand for and who coined the term? TESCREAL stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism. Researcher Emile P. Torres coined it together with computer scientist Timnit Gebru around late 2022 to name the seven ideological drivers behind the race to build artificial superintelligence, roughly in the chronological order the ideologies emerged over the prior 40 years. _Following the ideas shaping AI labs? Track analyses like this one on daily.dev._ ### What is the difference between terminal extinction and final extinction in longtermist thinking? Terminal extinction means the human species is gone entirely and forever, full stop, while final extinction means humanity is gone and left behind no post-human successors. Emile Torres explains that longtermist and TESCREAL thinking treats terminal extinction as acceptable, even desirable in some versions, as long as humans produce digital successors before exiting, avoiding final extinction. _Making sense of AI's philosophical stakes is easier with context like this on daily.dev._ ### Why does Eliezer Yudkowsky oppose building superintelligence now despite being a transhumanist? Eliezer Yudkowsky, author of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,' opposes building superintelligence before alignment is solved because he believes a misaligned superintelligence kills everyone and ends the story permanently. He started as a transhumanist, extropian, and singularitarian, and his doomerism is described as a scheduling complaint rather than opposition to the post-human destination itself. _Readers weighing AI safety arguments can follow this debate further on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Third Bit: Technofascism](https://daily.dev/posts/the-third-bit-technofascism-rxpldnrv9) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Reality Behind the Singularity — Startup Patterns](https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-behind-the-singularity-startup-patterns-ajausnukh) · Startup Patterns · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Anthropic urges a coordinated, verifiable pause for frontier AI](https://daily.dev/posts/anthropic-urges-a-coordinated-verifiable-pause-for-frontier-ai-itsaiakem) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [SA experts split on whether the singularity has begun](https://daily.dev/posts/sa-experts-split-on-whether-the-singularity-has-begun-i5g4pvzqg) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#ai-safety](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-safety) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-the-frontier-labs-actually-believe--zk2nhlma4) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What Do the Frontier Labs Actually Believe?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-the-frontier-labs-actually-believe--zk2nhlma4","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-do-the-frontier-labs-actually-believe--zk2nhlma4"},"datePublished":"2026-10-24T16:33:40.411Z","dateModified":"2026-10-24T16:34:22.819Z","description":"The ideology behind frontier AI labs is best understood through 'TESCREAL,' a term Emile Torres coined with Timnit Gebru in late 2022. 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Researcher Emile P. Torres coined it together with computer scientist Timnit Gebru around late 2022 to name the seven ideological drivers behind the race to build artificial superintelligence, roughly in the chronological order the ideologies emerged over the prior 40 years. Following the ideas shaping AI labs? Track analyses like this one on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the difference between terminal extinction and final extinction in longtermist thinking?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Terminal extinction means the human species is gone entirely and forever, full stop, while final extinction means humanity is gone and left behind no post-human successors. Emile Torres explains that longtermist and TESCREAL thinking treats terminal extinction as acceptable, even desirable in some versions, as long as humans produce digital successors before exiting, avoiding final extinction. 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