The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence - Stuart Russell on AI Risk
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Summary
In this insightful video by Science Time, AI pioneer Stuart Russell discusses the double-edged nature of artificial intelligence. While AI technology holds immense potential for societal benefit, it also raises concerns about its misuse, especially in areas such as autonomous weapons and the possible dominance of general AI over humans. Russell stresses the urgency of addressing these risks responsibly, drawing parallels with historical scientific advancements like nuclear energy. He advocates for the development of 'kill switches' and AI that can aid human decision-making without autonomous control, to ensure AI's benefits are safely harnessed for a prosperous future.
Highlights
Stuart Russell discusses AI's dual nature, as both a tool for advancement and a potential threat. 🤖
The concept of the AI 'kill switch' is emphasized to prevent AI systems from gaining unchecked power. 🔌
There's potential for AI to significantly enhance human capabilities, turning dreams of solving global challenges into reality. 🌍
Key Takeaways
AI's potential is both thrilling and worrying, especially with autonomous weapons and general AI risks looming. 🚀
Stuart Russell highlights the need for precautions, such as AI 'kill switches,' to control AI's future development. 🛡️
AI can lead to enormous benefits if managed correctly, potentially ushering in a golden age for humanity. 🌟
Overview
Artificial intelligence has become a staple in our everyday lives, from personal assistants to streaming services. However, Stuart Russell warns about the potential dangers if AI is left unchecked. He shares that applications like autonomous weapons and AI replacing human roles are concerning. Nevertheless, if we harness AI responsibly, it could lead to tremendous societal advancements.
Russell draws on historical lessons to stress the need for urgent research into managing future AI technologies. He emphasizes scenarios where AI could exceed human intelligence, creating a controversial narrative of machines potentially controlling or outsmarting humans. However, recognizing these risks early could help mitigate them by designing AI systems that are beneficial rather than harmful.
The idea of AI 'kill switches' is explored as a means to keep AI systems under human control, preventing them from making autonomous decisions. This preventive measure is likened to addressing potential threats like an asteroid impact; better prepared now rather than later. Dr. Russell remains optimistic about AI's potential to solve global issues such as poverty and climate change, as long as the technology is guided by well-considered human oversight.
The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence - Stuart Russell on AI Risk Transcription
00:00 - 00:30 artificial intelligence has become a key
behind the scenes component of many aspects of our day-to-day lives from the virtual
personal assistants such as siri alexa and google assistant to the suggestions from
your favorite music and tv subscription services [Music] the promise of ai has lured many into
attempting to harness it for social benefit
00:30 - 01:00 but there are also concerns about
its potential misuse it is already an important consideration when programmers
create ai systems with specific functions such as self-driving cars today the so-called
narrow ai that are designed to do one specific task are not capable of acting independently they
are designed with the sole purpose of enabling humans to complete their task more efficiently
dr stuart russell is one of ai's true pioneers and has been at the forefront of the field
for decades according to russell while these
01:00 - 01:30 applications and expected developments in ai are
enormously exciting others such as the development of autonomous weapons and the replacement of
humans and economic roles may be deeply troubling there are still a lot of people who if
you mention killer robots or autonomous weapons their only exposure is the terminator
robot and when we look at terminator robots
01:30 - 02:00 they are large slow moving heavy vulnerable
and incredibly inaccurate they shoot hundreds of bullets without hitting anybody the robots
we're talking about when they shoot a bullet it will hit its target so we're thinking about
systems that that weigh less than an ounce that can fly faster than a person can run and can
be launched in the millions so being attacked by an army of terminators is a piece of cake
compared to being attacked by this kind of weapon
02:00 - 02:30 the danger with the future of ai is the general ai
that can perform many different tasks very well a computer mind that improves learns and thinks
like a human or even exceed the level of human intelligence a hypothetical scenario where ai
becomes the dominant form of intelligence on earth with computer or robots effectively taking the
control of the planet away from the human species
02:30 - 03:00 has become a significant point of controversy
in the public imagination the worry arises from the possibility that machines may become smarter
across the board that they will develop general purpose capabilities the possible risks from
building systems that are more intelligent than us are not immediate but the need to start thinking
about how to keep those systems under control and to make sure that the behaviors they produce
the decisions they make are beneficial to us we need to start doing that research now but in
the history of nuclear physics there was a very
03:00 - 03:30 famous occasion when the leading nuclear physicist
ernest rutherford said that extracting energy from atoms was impossible and would always remain
impossible the next day leo zillard invented the nuclear chain reaction uh and within a
few months designed the first nuclear bomb so sometimes it can go from never and impossible
to happening in less than 24 hours and just to give you an analogy if someone said well you know
a giant asteroid is going to crash into the earth
03:30 - 04:00 in 75 years time would we say oh you know let's
you know tell me come back in 70 years and we'll start thinking about it no we don't know how to
destroy the asteroid and so we would start working on it now to make sure that when the asteroid
arrives we have the technology we need to to keep the human race going so i think the analogy
can be made to the possibility of superhuman ai unlike humans many systems with ais are unable
to understand the consequences of their actions
04:00 - 04:30 so the relevant question is what level
of control should be given to them or whether they at all should be permitted
to act autonomously in certain situations in view of the recent warnings from researchers
and entrepreneurs that artificial intelligence may become too smart major players in the technology
field are thinking about preserving human control one such method is the development of an ai
kill switch this would be a technology that
04:30 - 05:00 prevents ai systems from taking control of their
own destiny the concept of an ai kill switch has already been put forward by many prominent
experts in the field of artificial intelligence it was first raised by ai experts in 2013
when deepmind technology demonstrated the ability of their computer program alphago
to beat one of the world's best go players deep learning algorithms draw powerful insights
from quantities of data typically beyond human
05:00 - 05:30 comprehension but what if machines become so
superior in intelligence that humans lose control one of the things i think is is a possibility in
the not too distant future we've already seen a lot of progress on brain machine interfaces that
allow uh for example someone who's completely paralyzed to control a robot arm to pick up a
cup of coffee and have a drink and that's done by direct uh connection of electrodes into neural
tissue and the amazing thing about that is that
05:30 - 06:00 we don't understand the signals that the brain
uses to control its effectors right its arms and legs and so on basically we leave it up to the
brain to figure out what signals need to be sent to this robot arm to have it do what it does it's
not a conscious process but with a relatively small amount of training a monkey or a human
brain i don't want to say the monkey or the human because the human doesn't know what's going
on sometimes the brain is the one that figures out what signals need to be sent to this electrical
system to get the robot arm to do what it wants
06:00 - 06:30 just from common sense you know if you're a
gorilla are you happy that the human race came along and they're more intelligent than us how are
the gorillas doing right now probably not too well so there's a common sense idea that having things
smarter than you could potentially be a risk the particular risk of having systems smarter
than you comes from the fact that when you give a very very intelligent system an objective uh
and let's hope we give them objectives let's not leave it up to them to decide what they want
to do let's make sure that they they follow the
06:30 - 07:00 objectives that we give them the difficulty is and
we don't know how to specify objectives very well and when you give an objective to a machine
that's much more intelligent than you are it's going to carry it out it's not
going to want to be turned off because if you turn it off it can't achieve
the objective you gave it so you're essentially setting up a chess match
between the human race and machines that are more intelligent than us and we know what
happens when we play chess against machines researchers acknowledge that robots may not
always behave optimally but they are hopeful
07:00 - 07:30 that humans should ultimately be in charge some
researchers are calling for an international effort to study the feasibility of
an ai kill switch according to them future intelligence machines should be coded with
a kill switch to prevent them from going rogue an ai kill switch is a mechanism
for restricting machine intelligence by which humans who remain in control can
intervene to override the decision-making process existing weak ai systems can be monitored and
easily shut down and modified if they misbehave
07:30 - 08:00 however a misprogrammed super intelligence
which by definition is smarter than humans in solving practical problems that he encounters
in the course of pursuing its goals would realize that allowing itself to be shut down and modified
might interfere with its ability to accomplish its current goals if the superintelligence therefore
decides to resist shutdown and modification it would be smart enough to outwit its human
operators and other efforts to shut it down
08:00 - 08:30 russell postulates that it might be wise to build
oracles as precursors to a super intelligent ai an oracle is a hypothetical ai designed to answer
questions but it's prevented from gaining any goals or sub-goals that involve modifying
the world beyond its limited environment the oracle could tell humans how to
successfully build a super intelligent ai and perhaps provide answers to difficult moral and
philosophical problems the oracle may also be used
08:30 - 09:00 to determine how human values translate into an
engineering specification for superintelligence this would make it possible to know in advance
whether a proposed superintelligence design would be safe or unsafe to build russell has proposed a
novel solution a new human computer relationship to solve the problem of super intelligence so the
way i think about it is that everything good we
09:00 - 09:30 have in our lives everything that civilization
uh consists of is the result of our intelligence it's not the result of our long teeth or our big
scary claws it's from our intelligence so if ai as seems to be happening can amplify our
intelligence can provide tools that make us in effect much more intelligent than we have been
then we could be talking about you know a golden age for humanity with possibly the elimination of
disease poverty solving the climate change problem uh all being facilitated by the use of this
technology so i am extremely optimistic that the
09:30 - 10:00 upside is very great and that's the reason why we
need to make sure that the downside doesn't occur [Music] thanks for watching did you like this video then show your support by subscribing and
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