Risk of Existential Catastrophe: There Is No Proof That AI Can Be Controlled
By TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP
There is no current evidence that AI can be controlled safely, according to an extensive review, and without proof that AI can be controlled, it should not be developed, a researcher warns.
Despite the recognition that the problem of
AI control may be one of the most important problems facing humanity, it
remains poorly understood, poorly defined, and poorly researched, Dr. Roman V.
Yampolskiy explains.
In his upcoming book, AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable,
Uncontrollable, AI Safety expert Dr. Yampolskiy looks at the
ways that AI has the potential to dramatically reshape society, not always to
our advantage.
He explains: “We are facing an almost
guaranteed event with the potential to cause an existential catastrophe. No
wonder many consider this to be the most important problem humanity has ever
faced. The outcome could be prosperity or extinction, and the fate of the
universe hangs in the balance.”
Uncontrollable superintelligence
Dr. Yampolskiy has carried out an extensive
review of AI scientific literature and states he has found no proof that AI can
be safely controlled – and even if there are some partial controls, they would
not be enough.
He explains: “Why do so many researchers
assume that AI control problem is solvable? To the best of our knowledge, there
is no evidence for that, no proof. Before embarking on a quest to build a
controlled AI, it is important to show that the problem is solvable.
“This, combined with statistics that show the
development of AI superintelligence is an almost guaranteed event, shows we
should be supporting a significant AI safety effort.”
He argues our ability to produce intelligent
software far outstrips our ability to control or even verify it. After a
comprehensive literature review, he suggests advanced intelligent systems can
never be fully controllable and so will always present a certain level of risk
regardless of the benefit they provide. He believes it should be the goal of
the AI community to minimize such risk while maximizing potential benefits.
What are the obstacles?
AI (and superintelligence), differ from other
programs by its ability to learn new behaviors, adjust its performance, and act
semi-autonomously in novel situations.
One issue with making AI ‘safe’ is that the
possible decisions and failures by a superintelligent being as it becomes more
capable is infinite, so there are an infinite number of safety issues. Simply
predicting the issues not be possible and mitigating against them in security
patches may not be enough.
At the same time, Yampolskiy explains, AI
cannot explain what it has decided, and/or we cannot understand the explanation
given as humans are not smart enough to understand the concepts implemented. If
we do not understand AI’s decisions and we only have a ‘black box’, we cannot
understand the problem and reduce the likelihood of future accidents.
For example, AI systems are already being
tasked with making decisions in healthcare, investing, employment, banking and
security, to name a few. Such systems should be able to explain how they
arrived at their decisions, particularly to show that they are bias-free.
Yampolskiy explains: “If we grow accustomed
to accepting AI’s answers without an explanation, essentially treating it as an
Oracle system, we would not be able to tell if it begins providing wrong or
manipulative answers.”
Controlling the uncontrollable
As the capability of AI increases, its
autonomy also increases but our control over it decreases, Yampolskiy explains,
and increased autonomy is synonymous with decreased safety.
For example, for superintelligence to avoid
acquiring inaccurate knowledge and remove all bias from its programmers, it
could ignore all such knowledge and rediscover/proof everything from scratch,
but that would also remove any pro-human bias.
“Less intelligent agents (people) can’t
permanently control more intelligent agents (ASIs). This is not because we may
fail to find a safe design for superintelligence in the vast space of all
possible designs, it is because no such design is possible, it doesn’t exist.
Superintelligence is not rebelling, it is uncontrollable to begin with,” he
explains.
“Humanity is facing a choice, do we become
like babies, taken care of but not in control or do we reject having a helpful
guardian but remain in charge and free.”
He suggests that an equilibrium point could
be found at which we sacrifice some capability in return for some control, at
the cost of providing system with a certain degree of autonomy.
Aligning human values
One control suggestion is to design a machine
that precisely follows human orders, but Yampolskiy points out the potential
for conflicting orders, misinterpretation or malicious use.
He explains: “Humans in control can result in
contradictory or explicitly malevolent orders, while AI in control means that
humans are not.”
If AI acted more as an advisor it could
bypass issues with misinterpretation of direct orders and potential for
malevolent orders, but the author argues for AI to be a useful advisor it must
have its own superior values.
“Most AI safety researchers are looking for a
way to align future superintelligence to the values of humanity. Value-aligned
AI will be biased by definition, pro-human bias, good or bad is still a bias.
The paradox of value-aligned AI is that a person explicitly ordering an AI
system to do something may get a “no” while the system tries to do what the
person actually wants. Humanity is either protected or respected, but not
both,” he explains.
Minimizing risk
To minimize the risk of AI, he says it needs
it to be modifiable with ‘undo’ options, limitable, transparent, and easy to
understand in human language.
He suggests all AI should be categorized as
controllable or uncontrollable, and nothing should be taken off the table and
limited moratoriums, and even partial bans on certain types of AI technology
should be considered.
Instead of being discouraged, he says:
“Rather it is a reason, for more people, to dig deeper and to increase effort,
and funding for AI Safety and Security research. We may not ever get to 100%
safe AI, but we can make AI safer in proportion to our efforts, which is a lot
better than doing nothing. We need to use this opportunity wisely.”
