Nick Bostrom's Optimism That Superintelligent A.I. Will Share Our Values

By B.J. Murphy

Human beings are currently on a journey. We’ve always been on one, developing new technologies to help us transcend perceivable limitations – whether it’s seeing in the dark, traveling long distances, or communicating with the rest of the world. The journey we’re currently on is to transcend our very own biological limitations. In doing so, there’s a very good chance we’ll develop a new sentient life form in consequence – a [easyazon_link identifier=”0199678111″ locale=”US” nw=”y” tag=”seriou03-20″]superintelligent A.I.[/easyazon_link] For Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, this A.I. will be [easyazon_link identifier=”1250058783″ locale=”US” nw=”y” tag=”seriou03-20″]humanity’s last creation[/easyazon_link]. Question is: will it share our values?

“I’m actually fairly optimistic that this problem can be solved. We wouldn’t have to write down a long list of everything we care about, or worse yet, spell it out in some computer language like C++ or Python, that would be a task beyond hopeless. Instead, we would create an A.I. that uses its intelligence to learn what we value, and its motivation system is constructed in such a way that it is motivated to pursue our values or to perform actions that it predicts we would approve of. We would thus leverage its intelligence as much as possible to solve the problem of value-loading.” – Nick Bostrom

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Being optimistic about the future – especially one in which involves a superintelligent A.I. – doesn’t thus mean that we should ignore any possible risks that’ll occur as a result of whatever we create. There will always be a risk at what we do, as Nick Bostrom lays out in detail as to the many possible risks that might arise from this A.I. not sharing our values.

That shouldn’t deter us, however, from pushing forward and achieving these amazing technological feats. Instead we should be adhering to the Proactionary Principle and begin discussing these risks insofar that we develop a strategy that’ll effectively mitigate these risks and ensure the greatest possible outcome. Bostrom envisions a superintelligent A.I. that’ll share our values and fight for us when we need its help the most. We’re not talking about a doomsday scenario, like in the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00B5AETMO” locale=”US” nw=”y” tag=”seriou03-20″]Terminator film series[/easyazon_link]; we’re talking about the conjoined existence of both humanity and A.I. Are you ready for the future?

Photo Credit: TED Talk

April 29, 2015 By B.J. Murphy

About the author

B.J. Murphy is the Editor and Social Media Manager of Serious Wonder. He is a futurist, philosopher, activist, author and poet. B.J. is an Affiliate Scholar for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) and an Ambassador for the robotics company Humai.

Clive Norton

I am sorry but I don’t share Bostrom’s enthusiasm. Humans are emotional and illogical and driven by greed and other less noble attributes and I cannot believe that a super-intelligence would subscribe to those values. Unless we hard wire, as a Primary Directive, the greater survival of the human species into those machines, their logistical conclusion would sooner or later be (and likely very soon after their activation as sentient entities) that the survival of their own species overrides that of humankind. In our stupidity or arrogance or naivety or whatever else what one might like to call it, there is no greater danger of our extinction if we do not face this reality upfront. This issue has been debated by far-thinking writers of science fiction for over fifty decades already.
Jeff

And our values, as manifest through our thoughts and actions, are good? Would it that superintelligent AI not share a great number of our most consistent traits.
The Path of the Sun

When Nick states that we can teach AI human values and that they can be shared with them, I wonder what human values other than the need for air, water, shelter and food are there that humanity can agree upon?
TT

Hope it will be like the Culture: https://yannickrumpala.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/anarchy_in_a_world_of_machines/