The Challenge of Controlling a Powerful AI

By now, everyone is familiar with the remarkable achievements of special-purpose AIs like Deep Blue and Watson. Now, it is clear that as our accumulated knowledge of algorithmic methods and of the intricacies of human neural systems progresses, we will begin to see more and more advanced modes of artificial thought.

Assuming continued exponential or even linear growth of capabilities, a point will logically arrive when we will be able to build general-purpose artificial intelligence, and that artificial intelligence would have the capacity, with learning and self-improvement, to out-think any biological human.

Aside from locking it in a bunker with no internet access and a 1-bit (yes/no) output mode (and I'm not sure even that would work, given strategic incentives to try to use such an AI more extensively), how could such AI possibly be controlled by humans?

EDIT: I'm not assuming the AI will be evil and go out of its way to harm us out of pure malice or hatred. The issue is simply that we can't foresee long-term consequences of any set of built-in motivation and/or goals we might endow this being with. In his book Superintelligence, Bostrom outlines just how easily benign and plausible-sounding goals/values specifications could result in mankind being wiped out.

posted almost 10 years ago

Serban Tanasa‭

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