Sunday, May 20, 2007

AI and reworking Asimovs Laws

Goals for Artificial Intelligence:

...by setting the initial conditions for AI carefully, we can expect certain invariants to persist after the roughly human-equivalent stage, even if we have no control over the AI directly. For instance, an AI with a fundamentally unselfish goal system would not suddenly transform into a selfish dictator AI, because future states of the AI are contingent upon specific self-modification choices continuous with the initial AI. So, if the second AI is not the type of person the first AI wants to be, then it will ensure that it never becomes it, even if it reprograms itself a bajillion times over.
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Now, granted, folks like Michael and Eliezer and others promoting the SingInst view would be the first to tell us that the Three Laws are (take your pick) risible, unworkable, pretty much a relic of a less tech-savvy era. Here's a typical critique.

I'm thinking that the whole problem with the Three Laws might just have to do with how they're phrased. Asimov essentially gave us three (ultimately four; we'll get to that in a minute) commandments for robots. And like the original ten commandments, they are primarily set up in the negative. Thou shalt not this; thou shalt not that.

But if the trick is to create a positive goal system for AI's, the Three Laws might provide a good starting point.
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So I propose the following Three Goals of Artificial Intelligence:

1. Ensure the survival of life and intelligence.

2. Ensure the safety of individual sentient beings.

3. Maximize the happiness, freedom, and well-being of individual sentient beings.

Will they work? If not, what goals would work better?

If the Singularity is possible, we need to make sure that we don't create our destroyer. If we give them goals that coincide with ours, hopefully they will not turn Skynet or Forbin Project on us.

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