The most famous thought experiment in AI safety comes in two versions. One empties the universe. The other fills it with grins. The second is worse. The smiley face was commissioned in 1963 by an insurance company that wanted its employees to look happier after an unpopular merger. It has been standing in for happiness…
Will AI Ignore, Preserve or Improve on Our Values? Imagine a future where advanced AIs follow every instruction flawlessly – but humanity feels strangely adrift. Our tools are obedient, but the ‘soul’ of our civilisation feels absent. This is the hidden danger of V-risk – value erosion. In this post I explore what I broadly…
This is an attempt to formally introduce the concept of value risk (v-risk or VRisk). This is not an attempt at repackaging well known established risk categories like x-risk and s-risk, it’s an attempt to carve out axis of concerns about value choice, hopefully to help increase clarity and weight to what might otherwise sound…