Article "An AI Pause Is Humanity's Best Bet For Preventing Extinction"
by Otto Barten and Joep Meindertsma
July 20, 2023
by Otto Barten and Joep Meindertsma
July 20, 2023
This work of fiction seeks to depict key drivers that could result in a global Al catastrophe:
- Accidental conflict escalation at machine speeds;
- Al integrated too deeply into high-stakes functions;
- Humans giving away too much control to Al;
- Humans unable to tell what is real and what is fake, and;
- An arms race that ultimately has only losers.
The good news is, all of these risks can be avoided. This story does not have to be our fate.
Please share this video and learn more at futureoflife.org/project/artificial-escalation
This video has been informed by a 2020 paper from the Stockhold International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):
Boulanin, Vincent et al. ‘Artificial Intelligence, Strategic Stability and Nuclear Risk’. sipri.org/publications/2020/other-publications/artificial-intelligence-strategic-stability-and-nuclear-risk
Jason Crawford joins the podcast to discuss the history of progress, the future of economic growth, and the relationship between progress and risks from AI. You can read more about Jason's work at https://rootsofprogress.org
Timestamps:
00:00 Eras of human progress
06:47 Flywheels of progress
17:56 Main causes of progress
21:01 Progress and risk
32:49 Safety as part of progress
45:20 Slowing down specific technologies?
52:29 Four lenses on AI risk
58:48 Analogies causing disagreement
1:00:54 Solutionism about AI
1:10:43 Insurance, subsidies, and bug bounties for AI risk
1:13:24 How is AI different from other technologies?
1:15:54 Future scenarios of economic growth
Whether you get a job or a mortgage, who is released early from prison: algorithms increasingly determine the big decisions in our lives. Algorithms rule us all, algorithms rule everything. Because algorithms are faster and more efficient than people. But do they always make better decisions? And what does a society look like in which we are sent by big data and computer code?
Companies, and increasingly governments too, use algorithms to automate bureaucratic processes. These algorithms, sets of instructions and rules that are fed by big data, unnoticeably determine our lives more and more. For example, the algorithm of Facebook determines which (political) advertisements we see and see large groups of employees in the on-demand economy never even a boss. From an application procedure to a dismissal request they are controlled by an algorithm. Where should they complain if something does not go as it should be?
Legislatives are also emerging in the judiciary. For example, an American prisoner had to sit longer than comparable prisoners because the algorithm, which establishes a risk score, gave him an inexplicably high outcome. And unlike the decisions made by a judge, it turns out to be virtually impossible to challenge the assessment of an algorithm. Recently the British company Cambridge Analytica appeared to have developed models based on large amounts of Facebook data, which could influence the voting behavior of voters. These psychographics show that algorithms can not only steer individual lives but also democracy.
The mathematicians and programmers begin to realize that the algorithms that are among all these automated decision systems are not neutral and may contain errors. Because the smart code may then decide more quickly than people, the results are not only sometimes defective, but sometimes downright dangerous. Should we be blindly guided by the decisions of the algorithm?
De Dorothe Dörholt, Allemagne/France, 2022, 95’, VO fr, ST ang
Première mondiale
En observant les développements technologiques des intelligences artificielles dans plusieurs pays, ce film met en lumière les dangers et limites des algorithmes. Les dérives sont nombreuses entre manipulations et atteintes à la vie privée, comment les États peuvent-ils les réguler ?
By observing the technological developments of artificial intelligence in several countries, this film highlights the dangers and limits of algorithms. There are many abuses, from manipulation to invasion of privacy. How can states regulate them?