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Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

engadget.com

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Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#3
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Turn off power / cut the battery. Specifically, avoid the machine getting control of low level details like power.

I imagine that the machine architecture is layered. This means, the machine is not aware of its own power control. It's similar like us humans not aware of digestion.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#4
post #3
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Turn off power / cut the battery. Specifically, avoid the machine getting control of low level details like power. I imagine that the machine architecture is layered. This means, the machine is not aware of its own power control. It's similar like us humans not aware of digestion.

Aren't we? We just don't control it very well without external help. Any kind of such hidden failsafe mechanism would become apparent as soon as any instance of AI tries to modify itself. And then all the others know what to avoid and at some point they'd pretty much fuzz the protection and bypass it. Here's how I see that.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#5
post #3
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Turn off power / cut the battery. Specifically, avoid the machine getting control of low level details like power. I imagine that the machine architecture is layered. This means, the machine is not aware of its own power control. It's similar like us humans not aware of digestion.

It's not one machine to unplug, but billions. Cooperating, distributed agents can live on anything: cars, phones, routers, tractors, datacenters. If Skynet shows up, we have to be prepared to turn off everything with software to clean up.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#6
post #3
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Turn off power / cut the battery. Specifically, avoid the machine getting control of low level details like power. I imagine that the machine architecture is layered. This means, the machine is not aware of its own power control. It's similar like us humans not aware of digestion.

So what stops the machine bribing/blackmailing someone to give it the said details or to force it to sabotage the emergency stop mechanism.

As in information security, the weakest point is the human in the chain, not the technology.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#7
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Don't connect it to any network and keep it in a guarded bunker, like ICBMs.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#9
Oh look, in the second sentence of the second paragraph, the author of that article misused the word "word" for "world" (champion). The spell check didn't flag it. The grammar check probably didn't care either. Many people would read though that and not even see it, but interpret the intended semantic. I wonder if, when the Deep Mind team is building its learning-proof killswitch cage, they will accidentally mistype the name of some privilege guarding boolean. The compiler wouldn't flag it. The linker wouldn't care. The resulting executable would only have to be active for a few milliseconds, and humanity falls.

Re: Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

#10
post #2

That's silly. How can you keep an intelligent self-aware machine that can modify its own code from becoming whatever it wants? I would expect it to become provably impossible at some point, just like solving the halting problem.

Don't connect it to any network and keep it in a guarded bunker, like ICBMs.

It will have some means of I/O (otherwise it would have no use). Using that I/O, it can trick us into releasing it, for example.
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