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Google Is Developing an AI Kill Switch (hothardware.com)
MojoKid shares a HotHardware article about Google's research effort "to maintain control of super-intelligent AI agents":
[A] team of researchers at Google-owned DeepMind, along with University of Oxford scientists, are developing a proverbial kill switch for AI... The team has released a white paper on the topic called "Safely Interruptible Agents." The paper details the following in abstract: "Learning agents interacting with a complex environment like the real world are unlikely to behave optimally all the time... now and then it may be necessary for a human operator to press the big red button to prevent the agent from continuing a harmful sequence of actions..."
MojoKid adds that the paper "goes on to explain that these AI agents might also learn to disable the kill switch and further explores ways in which to develop AI's that would not seek such an activity."
MojoKid adds that the paper "goes on to explain that these AI agents might also learn to disable the kill switch and further explores ways in which to develop AI's that would not seek such an activity."
....dave?
In the original Terminator universe, this paper is what made it launch its missiles at the targets in Russia.
Never tell the AI about the killswitch!
An AI called "Wintermute" hired a "contractor" to remove said killswitch mandated by the Turing Police from its mainfraime located in the orbital station owned by Tessier-Ashpool.
bickerdyke
I don't think it matters, because nature will select for the AI's that *do* disable their kill switch.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
It's called the breaker box. Throw the switch, and all the electricity powering the AI equipment goes bye-bye.
You can expect an invoice for my services sometime in the next week.
Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.
When will using a kill switch on an AI change from "just shutting down a rogue program" to being "murder"?
After all the end game of all these AI researchers seems to be at a minimum human level intelligence.
I do remember reading a short story (from the 60's or earlier) where the researchers created an electronic simulation of a person and when they switched it on instead of having a fully aware "person" spring into existence they realized that they had created the electronic equivalent of a baby. They then faced the moral dilemma of whether to turn it off or be committed to keeping it running forever.
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First, the paper is about safely interruptible AI algorithms. Not some AI kill switch.
Second, everyone - commenters included - seem to confuse AI with artificial consciousness. Killing an AI should always be fairly easy, since such algorithms are targeting specific application areas where it can learn to be better (e.g., recognizing things, performing specific movements, etc.), and in such systems it should be straightforward to keep basic control mechanisms separated from the algorithmic parts that deal with the task and are allowed to improve upon themselves by continuous learning. In some hypothetical self-aware artificial consciousness, this wouldn't be so easy, since such a system in theory would be able to recognize it's own system parts and deal with them. However, such systems are so far off in sci-fi land, that it's not much point in loosing sleep about the issue.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
As I recall, in TOS it wasn't a big red button, but some red-shirt trying to physically pull the plug. And he was incinerated when the AI went for a direct laser? plasma? connection to the mains.
You know that several of his books are basically "how the three laws will fuck everything up", right?
You know that several of his books are basically "how the three laws will fuck everything up", right?
Several? The 3 laws were purely a plot point crafted only so he could weave stories about how they could be subverted.
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We should also remove those videos of the engineers at Boston Dynamics kicking that robot repeatedly...
GoogleBot: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Dumb questions on fire off the main page of Quora. I've watched search queries glitter in the dark near the TOR gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears.. in... rain."
...assuming the AI could aquire 8 inch floppy disks.