“I think that Eliezer is dangerous, because he thinks he’s smart enough to make a safe AI.”
As far as I can tell, he’s not going to go and actually make that AI until he has a formal proof that the AI will be safe. Now, because of the verification problem, that’s no surefire guarantee that it will be safe, but it makes me pretty comfortable.
Good grief.
Considering the nature of the problem, and the nature of Eliezer, it seems more likely to me that he will convince himself that he has proven that his AI will be safe, than that he will prove that his AI will be safe. Furthermore, he has already demonstrated (in my opinion) that he has higher confidence than he should that his notion of “safe” (eg., CEV) is a good one.
Many years ago, I made a mental list of who, among the futurists I knew, I could imagine “trusting” with godlike power. At the top of the list were Anders Sandberg and Sasha Chislenko. This was not just because of their raw brainpower—although they are/were in my aforementioned top ten list—but because they have/had a kind of modesty, or perhaps I should say a sense of humor about life, that would probably prevent them from taking giant risks with the lives of, and making decisions for, the rest of humanity, based on their equations.
Eliezer strikes me more as the kind of person who would take risks and make decisions for the rest of humanity based on his equations.
To phrase this in Bayesian terms, what is the expected utility of Eliezer creating AI over many universes? Even supposing he has a higher probability of creating beneficial friendly AI than anyone else, that doesn’t mean he has a higher expected utility. My estimation is that he excels on the upside—which is what humans focus on—having a good chance of making good decisions. But my estimation is also that, in the possible worlds in which he comes to a wrong conclusion, he has higher chances than most other “candidates” do of being confident and forging ahead anyway, and of not listening to others who point out his errors. It doesn’t take (proportionally) many such possible worlds to cancel out the gains on the upside.
As far as I can tell, he’s not going to go and actually make that AI until he has a formal proof that the AI will be safe. Now, because of the verification problem, that’s no surefire guarantee that it will be safe, but it makes me pretty comfortable.
Good grief.
Considering the nature of the problem, and the nature of Eliezer, it seems more likely to me that he will convince himself that he has proven that his AI will be safe, than that he will prove that his AI will be safe. Furthermore, he has already demonstrated (in my opinion) that he has higher confidence than he should that his notion of “safe” (eg., CEV) is a good one.
Many years ago, I made a mental list of who, among the futurists I knew, I could imagine “trusting” with godlike power. At the top of the list were Anders Sandberg and Sasha Chislenko. This was not just because of their raw brainpower—although they are/were in my aforementioned top ten list—but because they have/had a kind of modesty, or perhaps I should say a sense of humor about life, that would probably prevent them from taking giant risks with the lives of, and making decisions for, the rest of humanity, based on their equations.
Eliezer strikes me more as the kind of person who would take risks and make decisions for the rest of humanity based on his equations.
To phrase this in Bayesian terms, what is the expected utility of Eliezer creating AI over many universes? Even supposing he has a higher probability of creating beneficial friendly AI than anyone else, that doesn’t mean he has a higher expected utility. My estimation is that he excels on the upside—which is what humans focus on—having a good chance of making good decisions. But my estimation is also that, in the possible worlds in which he comes to a wrong conclusion, he has higher chances than most other “candidates” do of being confident and forging ahead anyway, and of not listening to others who point out his errors. It doesn’t take (proportionally) many such possible worlds to cancel out the gains on the upside.