Entries by Ariel Conn
When Should Machines Make Decisions?
Click here to see this page in other languages: Chinese Russian Human Control: Humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives. When is it okay to let a machine make a decision instead of a person? Most of us allow Google Maps to choose the best route to a […]
Podcast: Balancing the Risks of Future Technologies with Andrew Maynard and Jack Stilgoe
What does it means for technology to “get it right,” and why do tech companies ignore long-term risks in their research? How can we balance near-term and long-term AI risks? And as tech companies become increasingly powerful, how can we ensure that the public has a say in determining our collective future? To discuss how […]
Help Support FLI This Giving Tuesday
We’ve accomplished a lot. FLI has only been around for a few years, but during that time, we’ve: Helped mainstream AI safety research, Funded 37 AI safety research grants, Launched multiple open letters that have brought scientists and the public together for the common cause of a beneficial future, Drafted the 23 Asilomar Principles which […]
Three Tweets to Midnight: Nuclear Crisis Stability and the Information Ecosystem
The following policy memo was written and posted by the Stanley Foundation. Download the PDF (252K) How might a nuclear crisis play out in today’s media environment? What dynamics in this information ecosystem—with social media increasing the velocity and reach of information, disrupting journalistic models, creating potent vectors for disinformation, and changing how political leaders […]
Podcast: AI Ethics, the Trolley Problem, and a Twitter Ghost Story with Joshua Greene and Iyad Rahwan
As technically challenging as it may be to develop safe and beneficial AI, this challenge also raises some thorny questions regarding ethics and morality, which are just as important to address before AI is too advanced. How do we teach machines to be moral when people can’t even agree on what moral behavior is? And […]
ICAN Wins Nobel Peace Prize
We at FLI offer an excited congratulations to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), this year’s winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. We could not be more honored to have had the opportunity to work with ICAN during their campaign to ban nuclear weapons. Over 70 years have passed since the bombs were […]
Podcast: Choosing a Career to Tackle the World’s Biggest Problems with Rob Wiblin and Brenton Mayer
If you want to improve the world as much as possible, what should you do with your career? Should you become a doctor, an engineer or a politician? Should you try to end global poverty, climate change, or international conflict? These are the questions that the research group, 80,000 Hours, tries to answer. To learn […]
The Future of Humanity Institute Releases Three Papers on Biorisks
Click here to see this page in other languages: Russian Earlier this month, the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) released three new papers that assess global catastrophic and existential biosecurity risks and offer a cost-benefit analysis of various approaches to dealing with these risks. The work – done by Piers Millett, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Sebastian Farquhar, […]
Artificial Intelligence: The Challenge to Keep It Safe
Safety Principle: AI systems should be safe and secure throughout their operational lifetime and verifiably so where applicable and feasible. When a new car is introduced to the world, it must pass various safety tests to satisfy not just government regulations, but also public expectations. In fact, safety has become a top selling point among […]
Countries Sign UN Treaty to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons
Update 9/25/17: 53 countries have now signed and 3 have ratified. Today, 50 countries took an important step toward a nuclear-free world by signing the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is the first treaty to legally ban nuclear weapons, just as we’ve seen done previously with chemical and biological weapons. […]
Stanislav Petrov, the Man Who Saved the World, Has Died
A Soviet early warning satellite showed that the United States had launched five land-based missiles at the Soviet Union. The alert came at a time of high tension between the two countries, due in part to the U.S. military buildup in the early 1980s and President Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet rhetoric. In addition, earlier in the […]
Podcast: Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Elon Musk has called it a compelling guide to the challenges and choices in our quest for a great future of life on Earth and beyond, while Stephen Hawking and Ray Kurzweil have referred to it as an introduction and guide to the most important conversation of our time. “It” is Max Tegmark’s new book, […]
Leaders of Top Robotics and AI Companies Call for Ban on Killer Robots
Click here to see this page in other languages: Chinese Founders of AI/robotics companies, including Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI) and Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman (Google’s DeepMind), call for autonomous weapons ban, as UN delays negotiations. Leaders from AI and robotics companies around the world have released an open letter calling on the United Nations […]
Can AI Remain Safe as Companies Race to Develop It?
Click here to see this page in other languages: Chinese Russian Race Avoidance Teams developing AI systems should actively cooperate to avoid corner cutting on safety standards. Artificial intelligence could bestow incredible benefits on society, from faster, more accurate medical diagnoses to more sustainable management of energy resources, and so much more. But in today’s economy, […]
Podcast: The Art of Predicting with Anthony Aguirre and Andrew Critch
How well can we predict the future? In this podcast, Ariel speaks with Anthony Aguirre and Andrew Critch about the art of predicting the future, what constitutes a good prediction, and how we can better predict the advancement of artificial intelligence. They also touch on the difference between predicting a solar eclipse and predicting the weather, […]
Safe Artificial Intelligence May Start with Collaboration
Click here to see this page in other languages: Chinese Research Culture Principle: A culture of cooperation, trust, and transparency should be fostered among researchers and developers of AI. Competition and secrecy are just part of doing business. Even in academia, researchers often keep ideas and impending discoveries to themselves until grants or publications are finalized. […]
Joshua Greene Interview
The following is an interview with Joshua Greene about the Beneficial AI 2017 conference and The Asilomar Principles that it produced. Greene is an experimental psychologist, neuroscientist, and philosopher. He studies moral judgment and decision-making, primarily using behavioral experiments and functional neuroimaging (fMRI). Other interests include religion, cooperation, and the capacity for complex thought. He is the author of […]
Susan Craw Interview
The following is an interview with Susan Craw about the Beneficial AI 2017 conference and The Asilomar Principles that it produced. Craw is a Research Professor at Robert Gordon University Aberdeen in Scotland. Her research in artificial intelligence develops innovative data/text/web mining technologies to discover knowledge to embed in case-based reasoning systems, recommender systems, and other intelligent information systems. […]
Podcast: Banning Nuclear and Autonomous Weapons with Richard Moyes and Miriam Struyk
How does a weapon go from one of the most feared to being banned? And what happens once the weapon is finally banned? To discuss these questions, Ariel spoke with Miriam Struyk and Richard Moyes on the podcast this month. Miriam is Programs Director at PAX. She played a leading role in the campaign banning cluster […]