Accelerating Future

What is Friendly AI? From the glossary of Creating Friendly AI:

Friendly AI: 1: The field of study concerned with the production of human-benefiting, non-human-harming actions in Artificial Intelligence systems that have advanced to the point of making real-world plans in pursuit of goals. The term “Friendly AI” was chosen not to imply a particular internal solution, such as duplicating the human friendship instincts, but rather to embrace any set of external behaviors that a human would call “friendly”. In this sense, “Friendly AI” can be used as an umbrella term for multiple design methodologies. Usage: “The field of Friendly AI.”

2: An AI which was designed to be Friendly. Within the context of Creating Friendly AI, an AI having the architectural features and content described in this document. Usage: “A Friendly AI would have probabilistic supergoals.”

3: Friendly AI: An AI which is currently Friendly. See Friendliness. Usage: “The first AI to undergo a hard takeoff had better be a Friendly AI.”

And what, what, one might ask, is Friendliness?

Friendliness: Intuitively: The set of actions, behaviors, and outcomes that a human would view as benevolent, rather than malevolent; nice, rather than malicious; friendly, rather than unfriendly; good, rather than evil. An AI that does what you ask ver to, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, or as long as it’s a request to alter your own matter/space/property; an AI which doesn’t cause involuntary pain, death, alteration, or violation of personal environment.

The reason why the definition is intuitive is because the precise definition has to be in terms of math. Math that gets programmed into the AI’s algorithms.

Why does the first AI matter so much? Why not ignore the first and just try to do a good job on the second, or the third?

Hard takeoff: The Singularity scenario in which a mind makes the transition from prehuman or human-equivalent intelligence to strong transhumanity or superintelligence over the course of days or hours.

Whatever you believe about AI improvement speeds, it’s best to assume a hard takeoff. This is because the costs of being wrong on this point are so very high. One more distinction, this time between “Friendship content” and “Friendship structure”:

Friendliness content: Defined in 1: Challenges of Friendly AI. The zeroth-order and first-order problems of Friendly AI; correct decisions and the cognitive complexity used to make correct decisions.  The complex of beliefs, memories, imagery, and concepts that is used to actually make decisions.  Specific subgoal content, supergoal content, shaper content, and so on.  See 1.4: Content, acquisition, and structure; see Friendship acquisition and Friendship structure.

Friendliness structure: Defined in 1: Challenges of Friendly AI. The third-order problem of building a Friendly AI that wants to learn Friendliness (engage in Friendship acquisition of Friendship content).  The structural problem that is unique to Friendly AI.  The challenge of building a funnel through which a certain kind of complexity can be poured into the AI, such that the AI sees that pouring as desirable at every point along the way.  The challenge of creating a bounded amount of Friendship complexity that can grow to handle open-ended philosophical problems.  See 1.4: Content, acquisition, and structure.

One of the most common errors in initially approaching the idea of Friendly AI is to confuse Friendship content with Friendship structure. Instead of transferring over a fixed set of rules a la Asimov laws (1. Thou shalt not kill, 2. Thou shalt have no gods other than me, etc.), the challenge is to create a dynamic process that generates the “rules” we want automatically. The idea is to create a moral philosopher whose statements and beliefs garner reactions like, “wow, I wish I’d thought of that”, not a mindless machine that we have to be constantly worried is going to interpret “make humans happy” as “recycle all organic matter on the surface of the Earth into constantly stimulated homonid pleasure centers”. Successful Friendly AI is supposed to be a self-guiding arrow - a threshold of confidence at which, there’s no reason to worry that you “forgot something”, because the AI is on your side and will implement whatever safeguards you would think of, and more.

For the questions you’re thinking of, like “isn’t all morality relative?”, see the CFAI Indexed FAQ.

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This Universcale flash app is really impressive. I found the most interesting part around the micro/nanoscale. It includes data points on the very smallest electronics as well as organic molecules.

It was proposed recently that dark energy is just an illusion, caused by the relative difference in collapse speed of matter-dense areas of space relative to the voids. If this is true then it would be quite a fascinating discovery, letting us say that we actually understand 70% of the mass-energy of the universe. The remaining portion to explain would be dark matter. Despite their misleadingly similar names, the only thing that dark matter and dark energy have in common is that we don’t know where they come from. Both could be mere artifacts of our interpretations.

On Digg, every few days there is usually some article that hints about human-level artificial intelligence or robotics. The reactions are always twofold. Let me simply paste for a recent thread:

1. The Asimov Laws comment:

While pouring over code for days, lets hope they remember to put in the 3 laws of Robotics.

2. The “I’m worried because of movies” comment:

This shit is scaring me. In every movie involving AI the human race has struggled against robots, computers, or whatever you’d like to call them. If you let AI have physical responsibilities and give it the ability to learn it’s only natural that they will evolve and decide to kill humans. Computers can evolve faster than humans and it is almost certain as demonstrated by evolution that they will want to destroy us. There are mutualistic relationships in the natural world, but I personally don’t think computers will want us to live like we are right now.

I know some of you will laugh at this, but this is not a joke to me and you should wake up and smell the coffee. If AI is developed it should never be given the right to develop itself physically without giving it restraints that leave the computer unable to expand past a certain point.

Both of these comments are what you get from the average person, and as with many average-level thoughts on difficult topics, they’re superficial and unconstructive. Asimov’s laws wouldn’t work. Negative commands (”don’t do this”) are useless in comparison to positive commands (”do this”). Unless what you want a robot or AI to do is entirely implicit in the positive commands, the goal structure is unlikely to be self-consistent. Asimov’s laws were a plot device invented half a century ago. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we keep pretending that they would actually help or are a legitimate way of thinking about AI ethics.

It’s smart to be concerned about the future of AI, and “wake up and smell the coffee”, with regards to the fact that we aren’t going to be the only intelligent species on this planet for much longer. Many transhumanists need to do this. However, saying “it’s only natural that they will evolve and decide to kill humans” is the classic boring anthropomorphism that kills all serious discussions of AI ethics before they can even get started. It’s like trying to do math without having any coherent concept of number. Humans need to realize that everything we consider “natural” and “normal” about certain psychological patterns is entirely contingent on our historical experiences in a pin-sized corner of the totality of mindspace. There is no automatic connection between intelligence level and goal content except insofar as they sometimes come from the same underlying causal process (in our case, evolution), so to say, “once AIs surpass us in intelligence, they’ll want to kill us” is ridiculous Darwinomorphism. By Darwinomorphism, I mean unfoundedly assuming that a intelligently programmed intelligence is going to share the same psychological features that are common to all minds shaped by Darwinian evolution.

Anyone who holds either of these two beliefs - that Asimov’s laws are a decent idea, or that AIs will behave in a certain anthropomorphic way - is essentially sending a signal that they can’t contribute to the serious discussion of “what dynamic goals do we give the first AI, and what structure should be implementing those goals?” At present, it seems like the community who can discuss these issues is only around 100 people, which is unfortunate, because the clock is ticking and having several thousand would be much more preferable.

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The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies is transhumanism’s ethics think tank. The IEET’s mission is to “become a center for voices arguing for a responsible, constructive approach to emerging human enhancement technologies”. The IEET serves as a welcome counterpoint to such organizations as the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which “was established in 1976 to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues.” *rolls eyes.* Essentially, the IEET wants us to have the option of becoming smarter, kinder, longer-lived people, whereas the EPPC believes that we are a finished product of divine design and to modify or improve any aspect of our minds or bodies would be blasphemy. Recently I started contributing articles to the IEET in the form of blog posts, which are featured on their front page from time to time.

The coolest thing to come out of the IEET recently is the Cyborg Buddha Project, pioneered by Dr. James Hughes (pictured above from his time as a Buddhist monk), Mike LaTorra (a Zen priest who represents the harmony of transhumanism and spirituality), and George Dvorsky (practicing Buddhist and transhumanist blogger/bioethicist). The description of the project is as follows:

A confluence of factors makes this the perfect time to ask questions about how neurotechnologies that influence behavior, moral cognition and religious experiences should be used in the future. People on the Christian Right are embroiled in a debate about whether to accept scientific evidence for a biological basis for sexual orientation, and if they do, whether parents should “fix” their gay children in utero. Psychologists and economists are researching the genetic, life course and environmental factors that influence well-being, yielding findings such as cosmetic surgery being as strong a contributor to happiness as religious participation. Bioethics have created the subgenre of neuroethics to examine brain fingerprinting, memory modification and other neurotechnologies.

Devices are being tested to measure empathy and vulnerability to temptation. Resistance is growing internationally to the disastrous policies of “warring” on psychoactive drugs, and in the process on cognitive liberty itself. Neurophilosophers are arguing for a thorough grounding of philosophy in neurology and evolutionary psychology. People of faith are increasingly entering into dialogue with human enhancement advocates about the theological significance of the transhumanist project.

So the IEET will be launching the Cyborg Buddha Project to combine our efforts and promote discussion of the impact that neuroscience and emerging neurotechnologies will have on happiness, spirituality, cognitive liberty, moral behavior and the exploration of meditational and ecstatic states of mind.

For some militant atheists, like, say for example, me, mentions of the “theological significance of the transhumanist project” conjures up shades of “umm, excuse you?” However, I trust the motivations and worldviews of James, Mike, and George, and have faith (ha) that their Cyborg Buddha project will probe interesting new ground without contaminating transhumanism with the wishy-washiness of traditional institutionalized religion.

Fact is, it’s the “higher mental states” that really matter in the end, and if such mental states are traditionally associated with some form of spirituality, so be it. I’m tired of people seeing transhumanism as an outgrowth of college-kid Randianism, 80s-era “Me Generation”-ism, or early 00s dot-com WIRED crowd hyper-enthusiasm for “must-have gadgets”. Unlimited food and housing? Fine. Airplanes and spaceships for pennies on the dollar? Okay. Immortal cyborg bodies? Sure. But what really is fascinating about transhumanism is not changing the stuff on the outside, or even our own bodies, but the changes on the inside - smartness, kindness, better self-control, all that good stuff that we so manifestly lack. And I think that this Cyborg Buddha project symbolizes efforts in that direction pretty well. Good luck on it, guys!

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Over at the Lifeboat Foundation, we are pondering a website redesign. Are there any professional web designers in the audience who might be able to devote some evening/weekend time to brainstorming possible improvements and implementing them? If so, please get in contact with me via email.

Here is a small banner to put on your site if you want to link to us:

And one more:

Also, we are looking for any graphic artists to help with ads and the like.

And as always, keep an eye on the Lifeboat Foundation blog for existential risk news.

Thanks!

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Transhumanists Matt and Willow in Cincinnati, where the latter gave a talk to the Free Inquiry group there, representing the World Transhumanist Association.

Always on the lookout for rising stars in transhumanism.

(Via the WTA mailing list.)

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Kaj Sotala is a great guy who has done a lot for transhumanism. He sets an excellent example by donating $10 a month to CRN, Lifeboat, and SIAI, something you all should be doing. Now he steps up to the plate by writing an actual paper about AI, entitled, “Artificial intelligence within our lifetime? No idle speculation”. Here is the intro:

In recent years, some thinkers have raised the issue of a so-called “superintelligence” being developed within our lifetimes and radically revolutionizing society. A case has been made that once we have a human-equivalent artificial intelligence, it will soon develop to become much more intelligent than humans - with unpredictable results.

Often, people seem to have less trouble with the idea of machine superiority than with the idea of us actually developing an artificial intelligence within our lifetimes - to most people, true machine intelligence currently seems very remote. This text will attempt to argue that there are several different ways by which artificial intelligence may be developed in the near future, and that the probability of this happening is high enough that the possibility needs to be considered when making plans for the future.

Continue it here. This is an excellent effort for a critical cause. I wish more people would do things like it!

Another choice piece by Kaj is Why I Worry About the Future.

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A team of researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) claim to have developed the world’s first electromechanical prosthetic hand with a grip strong enough to crush an empty beverage can.

This bionic hand weighs a little more than 300 grams and has a grip strength of around 15 kg (33 lbs), which is about half that of the average adult male. The hand also features four quick, nimble fingers that take as little as 1 second to flex and extend. When used in combination with the hand’s opposable thumb, each finger can deftly pinch and pick up small objects of various shapes.

Researchers have long considered it a great challenge to design an electric prosthetic hand with a strong grip. Toru Omata, a graduate school professor at TIT, explains that until now, electromechanical hands have relied solely on motors for their grip. The secret to this bionic hand’s strong grip, he explains, is the system of pulleyed cables that run through the fingers and attach at the fingertips.

One day in the future, the proud owner of this bionic hand will be able to crush cans at will. For that to happen, though, the researchers need to outfit the hand with a system of myoelectric control technology, which would allow the user to control the hand by flexing other muscles.

(Watch video of the hand crushing a CC Lemon can.)

Via Pink Tentacle.

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