Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence

Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to investigate how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. This article gives numerous examples (which should by no means be construed as an exhaustive list) of such worthwhile research aimed at ensuring that AI remains robust and beneficial.Comment: This article gives examples of the type of research advocated by the open letter for robust & beneficial AI at http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-lette

Emergence of Addictive Behaviors in Reinforcement Learning Agents

This paper presents a novel approach to the technical analysis of wireheading in intelligent agents. Inspired by the natural analogues of wireheading and their prevalent manifestations, we propose the modeling of such phenomenon in Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents as psychological disorders. In a preliminary step towards evaluating this proposal, we study the feasibility and dynamics of emergent addictive policies in Q-learning agents in the tractable environment of the game of Snake. We consider a slightly modified settings for this game, in which the environment provides a "drug" seed alongside the original "healthy" seed for the consumption of the snake. We adopt and extend an RL-based model of natural addiction to Q-learning agents in this settings, and derive sufficient parametric conditions for the emergence of addictive behaviors in such agents. Furthermore, we evaluate our theoretical analysis with three sets of simulation-based experiments. The results demonstrate the feasibility of addictive wireheading in RL agents, and provide promising venues of further research on the psychopathological modeling of complex AI safety problems

“It’s the end of the world as we know it and we feel fantastic: examining the end of suffering”

This paper examines the consequences of the transhumanist goal to eliminate the suffering of all sentient beings. While transhumanists identify numerous approaches to this goal, the endgame is genetic modification of humans and natural predators. Pursuing this goal would cost trillions, and such treatments/technology would be available only to the wealthy. The transhumanist agenda around suffering is economically irresponsible, socially divisive, and inherently egotistical in its assumption that suffering is universally undesirable and meritless, and that scientists and the techno-elite have the right to modify sentient creatures. If transhumanists narrowed their focus to disease treatment and eradication, they could alleviate suffering while avoiding many of the negative consequences of their broader goal. Critically assessing the implications of the transhumanist agenda is crucial to the future of humanity, nature, and the planet as technology continues its exponential growth.Accepted manuscrip

Handling Cases of Willful Exposure Through HIV Partner Counseling and Referral Services

Cases of willful exposure reveal the existing and future risks to the public health (especially women) which may be presented by individuals who willfully expose others to HIV through unsafe sexual or needle-sharing behaviors. In response to a documented case of willful exposure, a PCRS counselor or other public health official may, in his or her professional judgment, decide to act to avert a legitimate public health threat to known or unknown persons in the community. Yet handling such cases raises difficult issues in law, ethics, and public health practice. Public health authorities may be unable or ill-equipped to successfully control risks of this type for several reasons: (1) they may lack sufficient resources to properly investigate these cases; (2) they may lack knowledge or jurisdiction over the individual who willfully exposes others to HIV once his behaviors extend into other communities; and (3) they are bound to maintain the confidentiality of sensitive information they obtain from PCRS. How do health care workers and public health departments balance the duty to maintain the privacy of public health information related to PCRS against their obligation to fulfill a partner\u27s right to know of their exposure to infection? What are the legal powers and duties of public health departments to protect the health and safety of individuals as part of their mission to protect the public health? What is the role of the criminal law concerning persons who may intentionally or knowingly attempt to infect others with HIV or other communicable diseases

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways