“Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower”*…
When warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence, many doomsayers cite philosopher Nick Bostrom’s paperclip maximizer thought experiment. [See here for an amusing game that demonstrates Bostrom’s fear.]
Imagine an artificial intelligence, he says, which decides to amass as many paperclips as possible. It devotes all its energy to acquiring paperclips, and to improving itself so that it can get paperclips in new ways, while resisting any attempt to divert it from this goal. Eventually it “starts transforming first all of Earth and then increasing portions of space into paperclip manufacturing facilities”. This apparently silly scenario is intended to make the serious point that AIs need not have human-like motives or psyches. They might be able to avoid some kinds of human error or bias while making other kinds of mistake, such as fixating on paperclips. And although their goals might seem innocuous to start with, they could prove dangerous if AIs were able to design their own successors and thus repeatedly improve themselves. Even a “fettered superintelligence”, running on an isolated computer, might persuade its human handlers to set it free. Advanced AI is not just another technology, Mr Bostrom argues, but poses an existential threat to humanity.
Harvard cognitive scientist Joscha Bach, in a tongue-in-cheek tweet, has countered this sort of idea with what he calls “The Lebowski Theorem”:
No superintelligent AI is going to bother with a task that is harder than hacking its reward function.
Why it’s cool to take Bobby McFerrin’s advice at: “The Lebowski Theorem of machine superintelligence.”
* Alan Kay
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As we get down with the Dude, we might send industrious birthday greetings to prolific writer Anthony Trollope; he was born on this date in 1815. Trollope wrote 47 novels, including those in the “Chronicles of Barsetshire” and “Palliser” series (along with short stories and occasional prose). And he had a successful career as a civil servant; indeed, among his works the best known is surely not any of his books, but the iconic red British mail drop, the “pillar box,” which he invented in his capacity as Postal Surveyor.
The end of a novel, like the end of a children’s dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums. (source)