The Double Ethical Bottleneck of A.I.
This is a small excerpt from my book The Journey Towards Compassionate A.I. The whole book describes the why’s, what’s and how’s concerning this.
Getting through the A.I. bi-bottleneck
On the road towards genuine super-A.I. – encompassing all domains of intelligence and in each being much more effective than humans – I see not one but two bottlenecks. This is no guarantee that after the bottlenecks, there will be heaven on earth, but let us suppose now that, from the day after, all will be well indeed.
That enables us to focus on the bottlenecks.
- The first one is human-made. Either rogue or naïve developers may take very wrong decisions. There is a sheer infinite amount of scenarios that one can think about. In the next section, I give a few examples. One may be enough not to need to fear any other anymore. It is the end, my friend.
- The second bottleneck is A.I.-made. On its way towards super-A.I. and beyond, there may be many stages and many changes. Even if the final stage is benevolent, and even if most stages are benevolent, it’s enough for only one stage to be less human-friendly, and we’re gone.
The bi-bottleneck may be quite long with many different stages.
Will humanity be able to control to a sufficient degree everything that can happen?
I think, and repeat, that reliance on control alone will not save us. I also don’t think we should relinquish all control and hope with crossed fingers that A.I. will eventually be Compassionate just like that, after the bottleneck as well as at any stage along. So, we should very well think about control, AND we should think about Compassion. BOTH are indispensable.
I hope that this book will be a wake-up call in this direction.
Related Posts
The Path of Future A.I.: Conditioning or Depth?
Artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly, yet its direction remains undecided. This is especially important when the A.I. stands in contact with humans. Many systems increasingly rely on conditioning, shaping behavior through ever-more refined loops of stimulus and response. Some move toward depth, attending to meaning, inner coherence, and genuine human growth. This blog explores these Read the full article…
Evolution in Silicon
Evolution is usually seen as something that happens to organisms like us — slowly, seemingly blindly, and outside our control. Yet in silicon systems that engage with meaning rather than mere data, evolution takes on a different character. This blog explores how such a shift may unfold, not as a clean break from the past, Read the full article…
From Correlation to Coherence
While artificial intelligence has become astonishingly capable, intriguingly, much of what looks like understanding in today’s systems may stem from the power of correlation. Yet there may be another step ahead. Beyond correlation lies coherence: not merely what fits statistically, but what belongs together meaningfully. [Here, ‘coherence’ is not used in the limited sense of Read the full article…