Biography:Max Tegmark

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Max Tegmark
Tegmark in 2024
Born
Max Erik Shapiro

(1967-05-05) 5 May 1967 (age 58)
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

Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967[1]) is a Swedish-American physicist, machine learning researcher and author. He is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-founded and leads the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit focused on reducing global catastrophic risks from advanced technologies.[2]

Originally a cosmologist, Tegmark's focus shifted toward artificial intelligence (AI). His 2017 book Life 3.0 presents scenarios for what the world might look like as AI continues to develop.[3] Tegmark advocates for a halt on the development of artificial superintelligence.[4]

Early life

Max Erik Tegmark was born Max Erik Shapiro[5][6] in Stockholm, Sweden,[7] on 5 May 1967,[1] to Karin Tegmark and mathematician Harold S. Shapiro.[8]

Tegmark grew up in Bromma, Stockholm. During his studies at Blackeberg's high school, he worked as a volunteer for the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, campaigning for nuclear disarmament.[8][9]

While studying at the University of California at Berkeley, he adopted his mother's surname Tegmark, as there were many astronomers named Shapiro, including one of his professors.[6][8] 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,[5] and—per Tegman's autobiographical description—he also coded a 3D Tetris-like game called Frac.[6]: p.55 

Tegmark left Sweden after receiving his B.A. in economics in 1989 at the Stockholm School of Economics,[7] and an M.S.E in engineering physics from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 1990.[10] 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.[7]

Career

Tegmark began an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving tenure in 2003.[7] In 2004, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of physics.[4]

Tegmark is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the president of the Future of Life Institute,[2] a nonprofit he co-founded with Anthony Aguirre, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[11]

Research

Cosmology

Tegmark has worked on precision cosmology, which combines "theoretical work with new measurements to place sharp constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters".[7] He has developed data analysis tools based on information theory and applied them to cosmic microwave background experiments such as COBE, QMAP, and WMAP,[12] and to galaxy redshift surveys such as the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, the 2dF Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.[12][13]

Alongside Daniel Eisenstein and Wayne Hu, he introduced in 1998 in The Astrophysical Journal the idea of using baryon acoustic oscillations as a standard ruler.[12][14] 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][16] Working with Angelica de Oliveira-Costa and Andrew Hamilton, Tegmark reported in 2003 the discovery of the anomalous multipole alignment in the WMAP data, sometimes referred to as the "axis of evil".[12] Tegmark also proposed in 2007 the mathematical universe hypothesis, which postulates that the physical universe is a mathematical structure.[17][18] Mathematician Edward Frenkel characterized the mathematical universe hypothesis as "science fiction and mysticism" rather than science.[19]

Journalism

Tegmark led a research project at MIT, beginning in 2020, focused on the application of machine learning to the classification of news reports.[20] They called the AI-driven news aggregator "Improving the News".[20][21] To maintain and scale the work, Tegmark and his wife and colleague Meia Chita-Tegmark founded the eponymous Improve the News Foundation (ITN) as an "apolitical" 501(c)(3) nonprofit in October 2020, with the stated mission to help "readers rise above controversies and understand the world in a nuanced way."[21] The ITN product was rebranded as "Verity News" in 2023.[22]

Machine learning

In the 2010s, after having focused on cosmology and quantum information for around 25 years, Tegmark's research started to focus on machine learning and AI safety.[7][23] He has worked at the MIT on how to use AI in physics and how to improve AI using insights from physics.[7] In 2024, he co-authored a paper introducing Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs), which differ fundamentally from the neural networks typically used in machine learning and are designed to be more interpretable. KANs are based on the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem, which was previously thought to be irrelevant to machine learning.[24]

Future of Life Institute

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."[25] It is focused on research aiming to mitigate existential risks for humanity, particularly those related to advanced AI.[26] 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).[11] 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.[26] It received a cryptocurrency donation of $665 million donation from Vitalik Buterin in 2021, as well as a $10 million donation from Elon Musk in 2015 and additional funding by Jaan Tallinn.[4]

Controversy

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,[27][28] an allegation to which the Institute formally responded.[29] 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".[30] 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".[29]

Awards and recognition

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".[31]

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."[32]

In 2023, Time named Tegmark one of the 100 most influential people in AI.[33]

Publications

Books

  • Tegmark, Max (2014). Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality. Knopf. 
  • Tegmark, Max (2017). Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Knopf. 

Selected articles

Media activities

  • In 2006, Tegmark was one of fifty scientists interviewed by New Scientist about their predictions for the future. His prediction: "In 50 years, you may be able to buy T-shirts on which are printed equations describing the unified laws of our universes."[34]
  • Tegmark appears in the 2007 documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives in which he is interviewed by Mark Oliver Everett, son of the founder of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, Hugh Everett.
  • Tegmark also appears in "Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole?", "What Time is It?", "To Infinity and Beyond", "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?", "What is Reality?" and "Which Universe Are We In?", all part of the BBC's Horizon scientific series of programmes.
  • He appears in several episodes of Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, an American documentary television series on science which first aired in the United States on December 1, 2009. The series is hosted by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.
  • Tegmark was interviewed by Morgan Freeman in seasons 2 and 3 of Through the Wormhole in 2011–2012.
  • Tegmark participated in the episode "Zooming Out" of BBC World Service's The Forum, which first aired on BBC Radio 4 on 26 April 2014.[35]
  • In 2014, Tegmark co-authored an op-ed in The Huffington Post with Stephen Hawking, Frank Wilczek and Stuart Russell on the movie Transcendence.[36]
  • In 2014, "The Perpetual Earth Program," a play based on Tegmark's book Our Mathematical Universe, was mounted in New York City as part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festival.[37]
  • In 2014, he featured in The Principle, a documentary examining the Copernican Principle.[38]
  • In 2015, Tegmark participated in an episode of Sam Harris' the Waking Up podcast entitled "The Multiverse & You (& You & You & You...)" where they discussed topics such as artificial intelligence and the mathematical universe hypothesis.[39]
  • In 2017, Tegmark gave a talk entitled "Effective altruism, existential risk & existential hope" at the world's largest annual conference of the effective altruism movement.[40]
  • In 2017, Tegmark participated in an episode of Sam Harris' the Waking Up podcast entitled "The Future of Intelligence" where they discussed topics such as artificial intelligence and definitions of life.[41]
  • In 2018, Tegmark took part in a conversation with podcaster Lex Fridman about Artificial General Intelligence as part of a MIT course on AGI. He was the first guest on the Lex Fridman podcast.[42] He was interviewed again on the Lex Fridman podcast in 2021[43] and in 2023.[44]
  • Tegmark is interviewed in the 2018 documentary on artificial intelligence, Do You Trust This Computer?.[citation needed]

Personal life

Tegmark married astrophysicist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa in 1997, and divorced in 2009.[45] They have two sons.[7] On August 5, 2012, Tegmark married Meia Chita.[7]

Tegmark's brother is the journalist Per Shapiro, who has written for the far-right, populist Swedish newspaper Nya Dagbladet.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Tegmark". Oxford University Philosophy of Cosmology. http://philosophy-of-cosmology.ox.ac.uk/tegmark.html. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "TIME100 AI | Max Tegmark | Co-Founder and President, Future of Life Institute". Time. 2023-09-07. https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6310651/max-tegmark/. 
  3. ↑ Harari, Yuval Noah (2017-09-22). "Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark review – we are ignoring the AI apocalypse" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/22/life-30-max-tegmark-review. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Hagey, Keach; Schechner, Sam (2026-01-04). "The Physicist Who Has Appealed to the Pope and Elon Musk on AI Safety" (in en-US). https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/who-is-max-tegmark-future-of-life-institute-accffffc. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Bodin, Magnus (21 July 2011). "Teddy—1984". x42.com (personal website of Magnus Bodin). self-published. https://x42.com/teddy/. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Tegmark, Max (2014). Our Mathematical Universe. Knopf. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 "Faculty: Max Tegmark—Professor" (faculty autobiography). physics.mit.edu. http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/tegmark_max.html. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "AI-professorn årets svensk – bygger app mot fake news" (in sv). Svenskar i Världen. 2020-08-12. https://www.sviv.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SvD-uppslag-Tegmark.pdf. 
  9. ↑ "Max Tegmark Och Kärnvapenfrågan" (in sv-SE). https://www.svenskafreds.se/upptack/fred-och-sakerhet/max-tegmark-och-karnvapenfragan/. 
  10. ↑ "2015 - Max Tegmark" (in sv-SE). https://www.kth.se/om/upptack/priser/kths-stora-pris/samtliga-pristagare/2015-max-tegmark-1.607344. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Strong, Rebecca (2015-01-15). "3 Things to Know About the Elon Musk-Backed Future of Life Institute". BostInno (bostinno.streetwise.co). Boston, MA: Streetwise Media. http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/01/15/elon-musk-future-of-life-institute-artificial-intelligence-research-could-be-crucial/. "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." 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Tegmark, Max. "Philosophy of Cosmology". http://philosophy-of-cosmology.ox.ac.uk/tegmark.html. 
  13. ↑ Cowen, Ron (2003-10-29). "Cosmic Survey: Galaxy map reveals dark business as usual" (in en-US). https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cosmic-survey-galaxy-map-reveals-dark-business-usual. 
  14. ↑ Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Hu, Wayne; Tegmark, Max (1998). "Cosmic Complementarity: H0 and Ωm from Combining Cosmic Microwave Background Experiments and Redshift Surveys" (in en). The Astrophysical Journal 504 (2): L57–L60. doi:10.1086/311582. ISSN 0004-637X. 
  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. 
  16. ↑ Tegmark, Max (1999). "The Importance of Quantum Decoherence in Brain Processes". Physical review A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.61.4194. 
  17. ↑ Tegmark, Max (2007). "The Mathematical Universe". Foundations of Physics. https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646. 
  18. ↑ Tegmark, Max (2007-09-12). "Mathematical cosmos: Reality by numbers" (in en-US). https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526210-500-mathematical-cosmos-reality-by-numbers/. 
  19. ↑ "Ad Infinitum". The New York Times. February 14, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/books/review/our-mathematical-universe-by-max-tegmark.html. 
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Frequently Asked Questions—Who's Behind This?". Improve the News. 2023-07-14. https://www.improvethenews.org/faq. [non-primary source needed]
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "About: What is Verity? ... Who is Behind Verity?". Verity News. 2025-12-08. https://www.verity.news/about. 
  22. ↑ "Use Verity to help teach media literacy skills" (in en-US). 2023-09-05. https://jea.org/digital-media/use-verity-to-help-teach-media-literacy-skills/. 
  23. ↑ "#133 – Max Tegmark on how a ‘put-up-or-shut-up’ resolution led him to work on AI and algorithmic news selection". 2022-07-01. https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/max-tegmark-ai-and-algorithmic-news-selection/. "After focusing on cosmology for 25 years, he shifted his MIT research group to machine learning six years ago, helping launch MIT’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions" 
  24. ↑ Nadis, Steve (11 Sep 2024). "Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable". Quanta Magazine. https://www.quantamagazine.org/novel-architecture-makes-neural-networks-more-understandable-20240911/. 
  25. ↑ FoLI Staff (2025-12-08). "About Us—Ourt Mission". Future of Life Institute. https://futureoflife.org/about-us/. "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.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Etherington, Darrell (January 15, 2015). "Elon Musk Donates $10M To Make Sure AI Doesn't Go The Way Of Skynet". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/15/elon-musk-donates-10m-to-make-sure-ai-doesnt-go-the-way-of-skynet/. 
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Dalsbro, Anders; Leman, Jonathan (2023-01-16). "Elon Musk-Funded Nonprofit Run by MIT Professor Offered to Finance Swedish Pro-Nazi Group" (in en). Expo.se. https://expo.se/2023/01/elon-musk-funded-nonprofit-run-mit-professor-offered-finance-swedish-pro-nazi-group. 
  28. ↑ Hume, Tim (January 19, 2023). "Elon Musk-Backed Non-Profit Offered $100K Grant to 'Pro-Nazi' Media Outlet". Vice News. https://www.vice.com/en/article/future-of-life-institute-max-tegmark-elon-musk/. 
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "Statement on a Controversial Rejected Grant Proposal" (in en-US). Future of Life Institute. January 18, 2023. https://futureoflife.org/rejection_statement/. 
  30. ↑ "[Linkpost FLI alleged to have offered funding to far right foundation"] (in en). forum.effectivealtruism.org. 16 January 2023. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5vFmMXWsh6PaYjqab/linkpost-fli-alleged-to-have-offered-funding-to-far-right?commentId=Dn88oPPMdDK9dpmjh. 
  31. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm. 
  32. ↑ "Hans Dalborg, Daniel Ek, Martin Lorentzon, Lena Olving and Max Tegmark to be awarded IVA's Gold Medals". https://www.iva.se/en/published/hans-dalborg-daniel-ek-martin-lorentzon-lena-olving-and-max-tegmark-to-be-awarded-ivas-gold-medals/. 
  33. ↑ "TIME100 AI 2023: Max Tegmark" (in en). Time. 2023-09-07. https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6310651/max-tegmark/. Retrieved 2023-12-27. 
  34. ↑ Tegmark, Max (18 November 2006). "Max Tegmark forecasts the future". New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225780.084-max-tegmark-forecasts-the-future.html. Retrieved 2012-11-01. 
  35. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - The Forum, Zooming Out" (in en-GB). 26 April 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041txvp. 
  36. ↑ Hawking, Stephen; Tegmark, Max; Russell, Stuart (April 19, 2014). "Transcending Complacency On Superintelligent Machines". https://www.huffpost.com/entry/artificial-intelligence_b_5174265. 
  37. ↑ Chichester, Sarah M. (10 June 2014). "The Perpetual Earth Program". Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140714231858/http://nytheaternow.com/2014/06/10/the-perpetual-earth-program/. 
  38. ↑ "The Principle (2014)". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2458876/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm. 
  39. ↑ "The Multiverse & You (& You & You & You...)". Sam Harris. 23 September 2015. http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-multiverse-you-you-you-you. 
  40. ↑ Tegmark, Max (2017-06-17). Effective Altruism Global: Effective Altruism, Existential Risk and Existential Hope. YouTube.com. Retrieved 2018-05-19.[non-primary source needed][third-party source needed] For archived versions, see Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine.
  41. ↑ Harris, Sam (27 August 2017). "The Future of Intelligence)". Sam Harris. https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-future-of-intelligence. 
  42. ↑ "Max Tegmark: Life 3.0". Lex Fridman. 19 April 2018. https://lexfridman.com/max-tegmark/. 
  43. ↑ Max Tegmark: AI and Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #155 (Podcast). Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  44. ↑ 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.
  45. ↑ "Max & Angelica's Virtual Wedding". https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/first_wedding.html. 



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