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The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

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Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#61

Post by xamdam »

arethuza wrote: post #32
loup-vaillant wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machine does not hate you, nor does it loves you. But you are made of atoms, that it could use for something else. --- If you create an AI with a genuine utility function. And that AI manage to be gazillion smarter than you are (think the difference between us and chimps, only much greater). Then it is likely the AI will (i) convince you to unleash it upon the internet, (ii) become even more powerful and totally…

Or we might end up with something a bit like the Culture - which is pretty much the best case scenario for humans co-existing with god-like AIs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture Vinge and Stross both hint at the worst cases - and they would be pretty bad, simply having using atoms re-purposed might not look that bad by comparison: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or a…

The default outcomes are bad; Culture would be pretty great by comparison.

Worst-case scenarios are not likely for the same reasons best ones aren't - the default is AI indifference (they use you for atoms)

Since you mentioned worst, this is a must-read-classic :) http://hermiene.net/short-stories/i_have_no_mouth.html

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#62

Post by [deleted] »

xamdam wrote: post #60
robotresearcher wrote: post #55

This thread is identical to its parody. Speculation about the future is fun, but I think a lot of people would be disappointed to see what AI actually looks like right now. The talk of runaway post-singularity AI is in the same class as imagining the future after cold fusion, warp drives, and ant-gravity. edit: anti-gravity. Though ant-gravity sounds fun too.

In the 1930s Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) repeatedly suggested, sometimes angrily, that the possibility of harnessing atomic energy was "moonshine". The examples you mention are of things actually likely never achievable, while there is an existence proof of intelligent machines walking around everywhere.

[deleted]

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#63

Post by robotresearcher »

xamdam wrote: post #60
robotresearcher wrote: post #55

This thread is identical to its parody. Speculation about the future is fun, but I think a lot of people would be disappointed to see what AI actually looks like right now. The talk of runaway post-singularity AI is in the same class as imagining the future after cold fusion, warp drives, and ant-gravity. edit: anti-gravity. Though ant-gravity sounds fun too.

In the 1930s Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) repeatedly suggested, sometimes angrily, that the possibility of harnessing atomic energy was "moonshine". The examples you mention are of things actually likely never achievable, while there is an existence proof of intelligent machines walking around everywhere.

Right! and I'm concerned about one or more of those meat machines going maniac and posing an existential threat to the rest of us. I'm much more worried about that than a descendent of Watson going all Ultron.

I'm far from a pessimist or Luddite. I'm optimistic that studying the smart meat machines can help us make better AIs.

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#64

Post by loup-vaillant »

jjaredsimpson wrote: post #57
loup-vaillant wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. I have seen a lot of smiley examples, and no serious refutation yet. A link would be very appreciated.

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/loosemore20140724

Thanks. I have read it all. I don't believe it.

First, the bulk of his argument hinges on the conflation of optimization power and value assessment. Those are easily separated. If you program an AI with a given utility function, and a goal of maximising that utility function, it won't modify the utility function in the course of increasing its optimization power. The utility function is supposed to be an invariant.

Now sure, you could try and tell the AI to align its own utility function to that of the human race… whatever that means. What is a human? How do you resolve conflicting values? It is all well and good to assume the presence of checking code, but he gave no hint about how those checks might actually work. If those are mere human-crafted checks, they are bound to be circumvented eventually, as the AI increases its optimization power beyond human level.

The AI doesn't care about human values. It only cares about maximising whatever goal it has been provided with, within the constraints of the checking code.

Second, I am wary of those swarm constraint relaxation intelligences. Since it is not even clear what utility function they might be maximising (if any), I wonder what would happen if they are given the power to self-modify in any significant way. Sure, this might be a lead worth following, but the safety of this design is even murkier.

Third, I'm not sure the guys at MIRI even believe in the doctrine of logical infallibility. They are well aware that perfect Bayesian reasoning requires super-exponential computational power, and is thus impossible to perform exactly. The AI is bound to approximate the Bayesian ideal, and cannot assume its reasoning is perfect —except in the few cases where it managed to produce an actual actual proof, like in 1+1=2, or simple probability calculations with simple prior information.

Overall, all I see is weak arguments grounded in assumptions I don't share. Worth a read, though.

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#65

Post by sixQuarks »

xamdam wrote: post #58
sixQuarks wrote: post #44

Let's not kid ourselves, there is simply no way to ensure the promise outweighs the perils. I'm talking about superintelligence here, not artificial general intelligence, although it's almost certain superintelligence will arrive shortly after AGI. Anyone who is not scared shitless of what's to come simply does not truly understand what AI is capable of. If you're one of those people, do not compare AI to ANYTHING th…

I largely agree with you (have been supporting intelligence.org before the topic was cool) but I think if we don't achieve human-friendly AI it's on us; a real failure rather than just succumbing to circumstances (like getting blown away by a supernova). Right now we have control and we can release AGI only if we have very high confidence that it aligns well with human value. The analogy that is somewhat relevant is…

Interesting info came out during interview with Elon Musk recently:

"— He is very, very concerned about AI. I quoted him in my posts on AI saying that he fears that by working to bring about Superintelligent AI (ASI), we’re “summoning the demon,” but I didn’t know how much he thought about the topic. He cited AI safety as one of the three things he thinks about most—the other two being sustainable energy and becoming a multi-planet species, i.e. Tesla and SpaceX. Musk is a smart motherfucker, and he knows a ton about AI, and his sincere concern about this makes me scared."

from: http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-m...

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#66

Post by xamdam »

sixQuarks wrote: post #65
xamdam wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely agree with you (have been supporting intelligence.org before the topic was cool) but I think if we don't achieve human-friendly AI it's on us; a real failure rather than just succumbing to circumstances (like getting blown away by a supernova). Right now we have control and we can release AGI only if we have very high confidence that it aligns well with human value. The analogy that is somewhat relevant is…

Interesting info came out during interview with Elon Musk recently: "— He is very, very concerned about AI. I quoted him in my posts on AI saying that he fears that by working to bring about Superintelligent AI (ASI), we’re “summoning the demon,” but I didn’t know how much he thought about the topic. He cited AI safety as one of the three things he thinks about most—the other two being sustainable energy and becoming…

Yes, absolutely there is a reason for concern. I now volunteer for FLI (the organization Musk funded; we deal with both AI and other x-risks, synthetic bio etc). From a somewhat insider view I think there is a lot we can do, and time might be on our side (AGI is a pretty hard problem). I'm cautiously optimistic that we (rational and altruistic humans) can make a difference.

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#67

Post by sixQuarks »

xamdam wrote: post #66
sixQuarks wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting info came out during interview with Elon Musk recently: "— He is very, very concerned about AI. I quoted him in my posts on AI saying that he fears that by working to bring about Superintelligent AI (ASI), we’re “summoning the demon,” but I didn’t know how much he thought about the topic. He cited AI safety as one of the three things he thinks about most—the other two being sustainable energy and becoming…

Yes, absolutely there is a reason for concern. I now volunteer for FLI (the organization Musk funded; we deal with both AI and other x-risks, synthetic bio etc). From a somewhat insider view I think there is a lot we can do, and time might be on our side (AGI is a pretty hard problem). I'm cautiously optimistic that we (rational and altruistic humans) can make a difference.

keep up the good fight! Thank you for your efforts

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#68

Post by gradstudent »

xamdam wrote: post #59
gradstudent wrote: post #56

As an AI student, I find the entire field to be a complete misnomer insofar as its very mention sends the imaginations of lay individuals in completely unrepresentative directions. To counter this problem, and perhaps combat the propensity to publish articles with crap fearmongering clickbait titles, I propose we rename Artificial Intelligence to Stupid Mathematical Tricks With Applications. I feel the title is much…

You're underestimating the field. The goal was always intelligence, and many leading researchers are pretty openly aiming for that. Stupid Mathematical Tricks are components of intelligence, and while it's true SVM with a cool new kernel is not going to take over the world, good prediction ability is something you can build on (as for example deep nets do to some extent). In the limit people should be thinking of imp…

I have attended on many occasions top AI conferences and have spoken to more researchers than I care or could count. I can tell you there is a very little interest in "intelligent machines"[1]. Rather, everyone I have ever met works on different types of problem solving techniques. What constitutes a "problem" and what makes a successful "technique" differ wildly. Taking a step back however and analysing the field as a whole you will find one commonality: almost all the research can be described as searching and sorting: i.e. stupid mathematical tricks.

The AI of today is not so drastically different from the AI of our academic grandfathers; what's changed is our ability to scale up to larger and larger versions of the same searching and sorting problems. Certainly there are worrying implications in this; machines that are able to parse and sift through very large data sets present all kinds of headaches for privacy and safety but let's not kid oursevles: there's nothing intelligent here. Tomorrow's AI is almost certainly going to be just a better version of today's AI; i.e very fast and dumb as a bag of hammers.

[1] The exception is when researchers need to sell their wares to funding bodies and the media. It is much easier to impress upon the lay person an idea involving "intelligent machines" than it is to explain what we actually do.

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#69

Post by RobertoG »

gradstudent wrote: post #68
xamdam wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're underestimating the field. The goal was always intelligence, and many leading researchers are pretty openly aiming for that. Stupid Mathematical Tricks are components of intelligence, and while it's true SVM with a cool new kernel is not going to take over the world, good prediction ability is something you can build on (as for example deep nets do to some extent). In the limit people should be thinking of imp…

I have attended on many occasions top AI conferences and have spoken to more researchers than I care or could count. I can tell you there is a very little interest in "intelligent machines"[1]. Rather, everyone I have ever met works on different types of problem solving techniques. What constitutes a "problem" and what makes a successful "technique" differ wildly. Taking a step back however and analysing the field as…

"but let's not kid oursevles: there's nothing intelligent here."

There are good indications now that brains work repeating a simple probabilistic algorithm in a multilevel fashion. Intelligence is not a magic property, but a kind of "searching and sorting".

" It is much easier to impress upon the lay person an idea involving "intelligent machines" than it is to explain what we actually do."

In my opinion, the opposite is actually true. No serious researcher want to be associated with those freaks that are waiting for the end of the world. They have a reputation that they need for making a living.

Re: The Dawn of AI: How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

#70

Post by xamdam »

gradstudent wrote: post #68
xamdam wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're underestimating the field. The goal was always intelligence, and many leading researchers are pretty openly aiming for that. Stupid Mathematical Tricks are components of intelligence, and while it's true SVM with a cool new kernel is not going to take over the world, good prediction ability is something you can build on (as for example deep nets do to some extent). In the limit people should be thinking of imp…

I have attended on many occasions top AI conferences and have spoken to more researchers than I care or could count. I can tell you there is a very little interest in "intelligent machines"[1]. Rather, everyone I have ever met works on different types of problem solving techniques. What constitutes a "problem" and what makes a successful "technique" differ wildly. Taking a step back however and analysing the field as…

I would expect to get this kind of impression from an average researcher, because that's what average researchers do (even at AI conferences). What do the top researchers think? Google paid 10M per head for DeepMind guys, explicitly working on AGI. Top researchers at FB works on specifing "Artificial tasks for artificial intelligence" (http://www.iclr.cc/doku.php?id=iclr2015:main#antoine_bordes), basically a better Turing metric. Schmidhuber, one of the original Deep Learning folks, http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/ has always been very open about pursuing AGI. There is a lot of work on combining graphical models with logic, for example Pedro Domingos' work, the goal is clearly machine reasoning.

Also, I'm sympathetic to Roberto's point about how the brain works; I definitely agree that there is no magic; it might just be a few stupid mathematical tricks layered all the way down.

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