Is self-interest by necessity the default motivation for all agents?Will Superintelligence necessarily become a narcissistic utility monster? No, self-interest is not necessarily the default motivation of all agents. While self-interest is a common and often foundational drive in many agents (biological or artificial), other motivations can and do arise, either naturally or through design, depending…
In this interview Jeff Sebo discusses the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and why we must take the possibility of AI sentience seriously now. He explores challenges in measuring moral significance, the risks of dismissing AI as mere tools, and strategies to mitigate suffering in artificial systems. Drawing on themes from the paper ‘Taking AI…
Concerning sentient AI, we would like to avoid unnecessary suffering in artificial systems. It’s hard for biological systems like humans to turn off suffering without appropriate pharmacology i.e. from aspirin to anesthetics etc. AI may be able to self administer pain killers – a kind of wireheading in reverse. Similarly to wireheading in AI systems…
In this short interview, Peter Singer, a renowned philosopher and ethicist widely recognized for his thought-provoking ideas about universal ethics, discusses the value of life, moral progress, population ethics (aka population axiology), the far future, the uncertainties inherent in philosophical reasoning, moral realism (objective normative truths) and ‘alternative facts’. Points covered:0:00 Intro 0:08 Moral progress…
There is so much wrong with the world right now – I don’t know where to begin. I wake up early with dread sometimes – it’s hard to know what thread to tug at – the amorphous confusion festooning the great big everything seems so hopeless. It would be a lot easier if everyone were…
Turning off all AI won’t happen in the real world. If we understand the signatures of sentience, we’ll be in a better position to know what to do to circumstantially prevent/mitigate it or encourage it. AI, esp LLMs ‘claiming sentience’ isn’t enough… We need to deep operational understandings of it. See the article by 80k…
The meaning of homo sapien means ‘wise man’ – given the many current human–caused precarious states of affairs, this self-description seems a bit of a reach. What are values? Values are beliefs or ideals that help determine what is important and how one should act. They can be thought of as a framework that guides…
What is M-Risk? M-Risk is the risk that a transformative AI may not be adequately motivated to pursue good values, even if it knows what they are or how to discover them. The AI might possess the cognitive capability to understand values (including their preference hierarchy to sentient agents) but lack the motivation to pursue…
This is not an attempt at repackaging known concepts, it’s an attempt to carve out axis of concern, hopefully to help increase clarity and weight to concerns about value choice – what would otherwise sound like a vague fear of “wrong values.” What is Value Risk? Value Risk (VRisk) is the risk that a system—technological…
Alignment Challenges It’s hardly a week goes by and there has been some new breakthrough in AI, it’s vaulting in capability to new heights all the time – it’s increasingly hard to deny how critical a role ethics has to play in shaping AI safety. Therefore it’s deeply concerning to see such significant disagreement among…
