eventually reach a state of static, well defined goals permanently.
First, this is radically different from the claim that an AI has to forever stick with its original goals.
Second, that would be true only under the assumption of no new information becoming available to an AI, ever. Once we accept that goals mutate, I don’t see how you can guarantee that some new information won’t cause them to mutate again.
Yes, but the focus is on an already competent AI. It would never willingly or knowingly change its goals from its original ones, given that it improves itself smartly, and was initially programmed with (at least) that level of reflective smartness.
Goals are static. The AI may refine its goals given the appropriate information, if its goals are programmed in such a way to allow it, but it wont drastically alter them in any functional way.
An appropriate metaphor would be physics. The laws of physics are the same, and have been the same since the creation of the universe. Our information about what they are, however, hasn’t been. Isaac newton had a working model of physics, but it wasn’t perfect. It let us get the right answer (mostly), but then Einstein discovered Relativity. (The important thing to remember here is that physics itself did not change.) All the experiments used to support Newtonian physics got the same amount of support from Relativity. Relativity, however, got much more accurate answers for more extreme phenomena unexplained by Newton.
The AI can be programmed with Newton, and do good enough. However, given the explicit understanding of how we got to Newton in the first place (i.e. the scientific method), it can upgrade itself to Relativity when it realizes we were a bit off. That should be the extent to which an AI purposefully alters its goal.
It would never willingly or knowingly change its goals from its original ones … Goals are static.
AIs of the required caliber do not exist (yet). Therefore we cannot see the territory, all we are doing is using our imagination to draw maps which may or may not resemble the future territory.
These maps (or models) are based on certain assumptions. In this particular case your map assumes that AI goals are immutable. That is an assumption of this particular map/model, it does not derive from any empirical reality.
If you want to argue that in your map/model of an AI the goals are immutable, fine. However they are immutable because you assumed them so and for no other reason.
If you want to argue that in reality the AI’s goals are immutable because there is a law of nature or logic or something else that requires it—show me the law.
Long before goal mutation is a problem malformed constraints become a problem. Consider a thought experiment: Someone offers to pay you 100 dollars when a wheelbarrow is full of water from a nearby lake, and provides you with the wheelbarrow and a teaspoon. Before you have to worry about people deciding they don’t care about 100 dollars, you need to decide how to keep them from just pushing the wheelbarrow into the lake.
Long before goal mutation is a problem malformed constraints become a problem.
True. But we are not arguing about what is a bigger (or earlier) problem. I’m being told that an AI can not, absolutely can NOT change its original goals (or terminal values). And that looks very handwavy to me.
First, this is radically different from the claim that an AI has to forever stick with its original goals.
Second, that would be true only under the assumption of no new information becoming available to an AI, ever. Once we accept that goals mutate, I don’t see how you can guarantee that some new information won’t cause them to mutate again.
Yes, but the focus is on an already competent AI. It would never willingly or knowingly change its goals from its original ones, given that it improves itself smartly, and was initially programmed with (at least) that level of reflective smartness.
Goals are static. The AI may refine its goals given the appropriate information, if its goals are programmed in such a way to allow it, but it wont drastically alter them in any functional way.
An appropriate metaphor would be physics. The laws of physics are the same, and have been the same since the creation of the universe. Our information about what they are, however, hasn’t been. Isaac newton had a working model of physics, but it wasn’t perfect. It let us get the right answer (mostly), but then Einstein discovered Relativity. (The important thing to remember here is that physics itself did not change.) All the experiments used to support Newtonian physics got the same amount of support from Relativity. Relativity, however, got much more accurate answers for more extreme phenomena unexplained by Newton.
The AI can be programmed with Newton, and do good enough. However, given the explicit understanding of how we got to Newton in the first place (i.e. the scientific method), it can upgrade itself to Relativity when it realizes we were a bit off. That should be the extent to which an AI purposefully alters its goal.
AIs of the required caliber do not exist (yet). Therefore we cannot see the territory, all we are doing is using our imagination to draw maps which may or may not resemble the future territory.
These maps (or models) are based on certain assumptions. In this particular case your map assumes that AI goals are immutable. That is an assumption of this particular map/model, it does not derive from any empirical reality.
If you want to argue that in your map/model of an AI the goals are immutable, fine. However they are immutable because you assumed them so and for no other reason.
If you want to argue that in reality the AI’s goals are immutable because there is a law of nature or logic or something else that requires it—show me the law.
Long before goal mutation is a problem malformed constraints become a problem. Consider a thought experiment: Someone offers to pay you 100 dollars when a wheelbarrow is full of water from a nearby lake, and provides you with the wheelbarrow and a teaspoon. Before you have to worry about people deciding they don’t care about 100 dollars, you need to decide how to keep them from just pushing the wheelbarrow into the lake.
True. But we are not arguing about what is a bigger (or earlier) problem. I’m being told that an AI can not, absolutely can NOT change its original goals (or terminal values). And that looks very handwavy to me.