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Dean W. Ball
@deanwball
Vague statements like this, which fundamentally cannot be operationalized in policy but feel nice to sign, are counterproductive and silly. Just as they were two or so years ago, when we went through another cycle of nebulous AI-statement-signing. Let’s set aside the total lack of a definition of “superintelligence.” I’ll even grant the statement drafters that we all arrive on a mutually agreeable definition. Then assume we write that definition into a law, which says “no superintelligence until it’s proven safe.” How do we enforce this law? Now comes the fine print—the stuff left unsaid in the statement, the stuff the statement drafters probably did not much discuss with the many signatories who lent their names and reputations to this endeavor. How do you prove superintelligence will be safe without building it? How do you prove a plane is flightworthy without flying it? You can’t. So, the logic would go, we will need a sanctioned venue and institution for superintelligence development, where we will experiment with the technology until it is “proven safe” (who decides this, by the way, and what happens after it is “proven safe”?) This institution would need to be funded somehow by all governments with similar prohibitions (which the statement drafters, though probably not all signatories, would likely argue needs to include every country on Earth, including US adversaries). A global governance body whose purpose is to build the thing the statement drafters have told us is so dangerous, partially because of the power it could confer on those who control it. A consortium of governments which, if successful, would exercise unilateral control over how to wield this technology—and against whom to wield it. The same people who uniquely possess militaries, police, and a monopoly on legitimate violence. The same people who possess, in other words and in the final analysis, the right to kill you or confiscate your property if you do not listen to them, newly empowered with the most powerful technology ever conceived. Does that sound “safe” to you? This sounds to me like the worst possible way to build “superintelligence.” I reject all efforts to centralize power in this way. And I reject blobby statements with no path to productive realization in policy.
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Max Tegmark
@tegmark
A stunningly broad coalition has come out against Skynet: AI researchers, faith leaders, business pioneers, policymakers, NatSec folks and actors stand together, from Bannon & Beck to Hinton, Wozniak & Prince Harry. We stand together because we want a human future.
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