AI should serve human interests without conflict from "summary" of Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
The fundamental idea is that AI systems should reliably and effectively pursue our objectives without causing harm. This principle is straightforward and uncontroversial, but it has profound implications. It means that AI should be aligned with human values - that is, it should do what we want it to do. If we specify our objectives as "maximize the number of smiles," then the AI should work to maximize the number of smiles. If we specify our objectives as "cure cancer," then the AI should work to cure cancer. If we specify our objectives as "make as much money as possible," then the AI should work to make as much money as possible. The challenge is to design AI systems that are provably aligned with human interests under all circumstances and to ensure that they remain so as they become more intelligent. The AI's objectives must be well-specified. They must capture our true desires and values, as opposed to some distorted version of them. They must take into account the full range of consequences of the AI's actions, not just the immediate effects. And they must be robust, in the sense that they are not easily subverted or undermined by unforeseen events or adversaries. In practice, achieving alignment means solving a difficult technical problem, which is how to design an AI system that can reliably learn our objectives and pursue them in a safe and robust manner. This requires a deep understanding of human preferences and values, as well as a sophisticated understanding of how to specify and reason about complex objectives in a way that is both computationally tractable and robust to uncertainty and adversarial manipulation. The key idea is to treat the AI's objectives as a kind of "utility function" that the AI is trying to maximize. The utility function encodes our preferences and values in a mathematical form that the AI can reason about and optimize. The challenge is to ensure that the AI's utility function is aligned with our true preferences and values, rather than some distorted or oversimplified version of them. This requires careful thought and analysis, as well as the development of new techniques and methods for specifying, learning, and reasoning about complex objectives in a way that is both computationally tractable and robust in the face of uncertainty and adversarial manipulation. In summary, the principle that AI should serve human interests without conflict is a simple and compelling idea, but it has profound implications for the design and development of AI systems. Achieving alignment between AI systems and human values is a challenging technical problem that requires a deep understanding of human
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