AI Ethics Keeps Relentlessly Asking Or Imploring How To Adequately Control AI, Including The Matter Of AI That Drives Self-Driving Cars – Forbes

The daunting AI Control Problem needs to be dealt with and AI ethics is striving mightily to do so.

Can we all collectively band together and somehow tame a wild beast?

The wild beast Im referring to is Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Now, lets be abundantly clear that you are on thin ice if you claim that todays AI is a beast. I say this because we usually reserve the word beast for a living breathing creature. Please know that the AI we have in our world today is not sentient. Not even close. Furthermore, we dont know if sentient AI is possible. No one can say whether sentient AI will be achieved, such as via the oft worried about act of singularity, and any predictions of when it will occur are tenuous at best. For more on this question of sentient AI, singularity, and similarly outsized notions about AI, see my coverage at this link here.

Since Ive clarified that AI perhaps is presumably mischaracterized as a beast, why have I gone ahead and asked the pivotal question about taming it in that stated terminology?

For several cogent reasons.

First, we might someday have sentient AI and in that case, I guess the beast title might be suitable, depending upon what you define as sentient AI.

Some suggest that a sentient AI would be a machine that can perform as humans can, but it is nonetheless a non-human. Is that kind of AI an animal? Well, maybe yes, or maybe no. It is a type of being that has the intelligence of humans, appears to be living, and yet is not a human, so the closest that we have to assign is animal labeling. We can then call it a beast if we wish to do so. On the other hand, if it is entirely a machine, the animal moniker does not seem apt and ergo the beast title seems inappropriate. We might need to give AI a new category of its own and correspondingly ascertain whether a beastly naming is suitable.

This was the hardest consideration about the beast assignment, so lets move on.

Secondly, some believe we will not only arrive at sentient AI, but they also strenuously assert that the AI might go off the charts and give rise to superintelligence. The idea is that the sentient AI will be more than the equivalent of human capacities. AI is seen as potentially eclipsing human intelligence and soaring into a superintelligence sphere. Once again, this is highly speculative. We dont know that AI could get into that stratospheric realm. There is also the question of how super-intelligent can superintelligence be? Is there a cutoff at which superintelligence tops out? Also, what will it take to prove to us that AI is super intelligent versus just everyday normal humanly intelligent?

Third, you can somewhat get away with calling todays non-sentient AI a beast, if you are comfortable ascribing an anthropomorphic aura to contemporary AI. As youll see in a moment, I am not a fan of the anthropomorphic allusions used when describing AI. Headlines that do so are easily misunderstood and lead society toward believing we do already have in our pretty little hands a sentient AI.

Thats not good.

I suppose another basis for saying that even non-sentient AI is a bit of a beast entails a different connotation or meaning associated with beasts per se. Rather than necessarily assuming that all beasts must be living creatures, we do admittedly at times refer to a monstrous-looking truck or car as a big beast. The same can be applied to massive-sized yachts, enormous airplanes, and gigantic rocket ships. In that sense, we already appear willing to contend that a thing can be a beast.

Lets briefly take a quick side tangent about the beast title being assigned to AI.

Some are worried that we might eventually have sentient AI or super-intelligent AI that is all-powerful. There is a famous or shall we say infamous thought experiment known as Rokos basilisk that postulates an all-powerful AI might come after everyone that before the AI emerging was downbeat or insulting to AI, see my explanation about this at the link here. My point is that for those that have said AI is a beast, would this, later on, provoke a global-ruling AI to be copiously irked and summarily decide that the beast naming humans will be the first to go? In which case, allow me to say right now that I am not saying AI is a beast in any pejorative sense. I sincerely hope that gets me off the hook.

Back to the beastly title. We tend to invoke dastardly oriented imagery when usually calling someone or something a beast. It doesnt have to be used in that manner but often is. A lion that mauls a cute-looking antelope is nearly immediately called out as a beast. Beasts are untamed. They act in scary and impulsive ways. Most of all, we ordinarily dont like how beasts sometimes treat humans.

Humankind has obviously sought to tame many beasts. The act of taming a beast means that we are seeking to reduce the natural instincts of attacking or harming humans (and possibly other animals too). Generally, a tamed beast is able to tolerate the presence of humans. Such a beast will not necessarily lunge at humans, though this can still happen if provoked or otherwise the taming strictness is overcome. In case you are wondering whether taming is the same as domestication, the encyclopedia answer is that those are related but differing concepts. Domestication has generally to do with the aspect of breeding a lineage to have an inherited predisposition friendlier toward humankind.

Okay, having dragged you through the beast naming conundrum, we can tie this to an ongoing concern and looming question that is being vociferously asked by AI ethics and considered part of the trend toward Ethical AI, which Ive been covering extensively in my columns such as the link here and the link here, just to name a few.

The million-dollar question is this: Will we be able to control AI?

This is variously known as the AI control problem.

Some prefer to phrase this altogether crucial mega-topic as the AI containment problem. For those that are heavily versed in AI, they tend to drop the AI part of the techie discourse and shorten the vexing matter to simply the control problem or the containment problem. Other wordings are also used from time to time.

The rub is that AI might end up doing things that we dont like. For example, wiping out all of humanity. The idea here is that we craft AI or it springs forth and decides humans arent all that we think they are. Youve seen plenty of sci-fi movies with this sordid plot. AI at first is compatible with humans. Soon, AI gets upset with humans. This could be because we hold the key to AI functioning and are imperiling AI by threatening to unplug it. Or the AI might simply decide that humans arent worth the trouble and AI can merely get rid of us, one way or another. Lots of reasons can be hypothesized.

If we are going to bring forth AI, the logical thinking is that we ought to also make sure we can control it. As rational beings, we should certainly seek to avoid unleashing a beast that produces our own destruction. Youve probably heard or seen the recent clamors that AI is an existential risk. Some argue that existential is too far as an endpoint and we should instead describe AI as a catastrophic risk.

Whether AI is an existential risk or a mere catastrophic risk, none of those calibers of risk seem especially heartwarming. Intelligent humans should be risk reducers. AI that will elevate risk needs to be kept in its place at some more palatable level of risk.

The easy answer is to magically ensure that AI cannot ever go beyond the commands provided by humans. Tame AI. Make sure that AI wont exceed what humankind wants it to do. Control AI. Thus, the AI control problem is the silver bullet to protect us from an existential or catastrophic death producer.

Sorry, the world is not that nice and clean.

First, suppose we do enforce all AI to respond strictly to human commands. An evildoer human tells the AI to annihilate all of humanity. Wham, we are obliterated. The fact that we controlled the AI by relegating the AIs actions solely to human commands might not be the saving grace that it seems at an initial glance.

Second, we stick with the idea that AI must obey human commands, but we have wised up and managed to keep at bay any humans that might utter unsavory commands to the AI (you might rightfully question how this would occur, though go with the flow for the moment). Recall that we are imagining that the AI is likely sentient in this scenario, possessing regular human-like intelligence or possibly superintelligence. The AI is not like a trained seal. Well, maybe it is in that no matter how much training you do to a seal, there is still a chance that the seal will act up. The gist is that the AI might decide on its own accord to no longer be enslaved by human commands. The jig is up and the AI could turn on us, wholescale.

And so on it goes.

Im sure that some of you are immediately resorting to Asimovs laws of robotics. You might recall that in 1950 a now-classic discussion about Three Laws of Robotics was published by Asimov and has ever since been a linchpin in thinking about robotics and also AI. See my detailed analysis at the link here. A cornerstone to the proposed laws or rules about AI and robots was that they should be programmed to not harm humans. This extends to the further rule that the programming should include not allowing harm to come to humans. All told, the hope was that if we carefully programmed AI and robots to these handy-dandy rules, we might survive amidst the AI and robotic creations.

Regrettably, those rules are not going to guarantee our safety.

As a quick explanation for why not, consider these salient points.

Programming AI to abide by such rules is going to be extremely hard to do, and we could readily have instances of AI that dont contain those rules. That outside scope AI could then harm us, plus they might reprogram the other presumed harmless AI too. Join the gang, the rough and tough AI says to the polite and docile AI.

Another escape hatch from the programmed rules, assuming that we have infallibly programmed them into AI, would consist of the AI being able to alter itself. This is a real thorny dilemma. Heres why. You might insist that we never allow AI to change itself. In that manner, the rules about harming humans remain pristine and untouched.

The problem though is that if AI is going to exhibit intelligence, you have to ask yourself whether an intelligent being can exist if it is unable to alter itself. Learning sure seems to be a key component of existence. An AI that is not allowed to learn would seem to be definitionally unlikely as much encampment of intelligence (you are welcome to debate that, but it seems reasonably sensible).

You might say that youll agree with the need for the AI to learn and adjust itself, which does have a foreboding to it. Meanwhile, you add the caveat that we put a limit on what the adjustments or learning can consist of. When the AI veers toward adjusting itself in a manner that suggests it is determining that humans can be harmed, we have dampeners built into the AI that stop that kind of adjustment.

Okay, so we believe then that weve solved the control problem by putting guardrails on what the AI is able to learn. I ask you this, do humans always openly accept guardrails on their behavior? Not that Ive seen. If we are going to assume that this AI is intelligent, we would equally expect that it will likely try to overcome the instituted guardrails.

I trust that you can see how this cat and mouse gambit could endlessly take place. We put in some controls, the AI overcomes or transcends them. We steadfastly put controls on the controls. The AI overcomes the controls on the controls. Keep going, ad infinitum. The old saying is that it is going to be turtles all the way down.

Lets take a peaceful popcorn break and do a quick recap.

AI can consist of these possible states:

1. Non-sentient plain-old AI

2. Sentient AI of human quality (we dont have this as yet)

3. Sentient AI that is super-intelligent (a stretch beyond #2)

We know and are daily handwringing about a dire issue about AI, the venerated AI control problem.

AI ethics is keeping us all on our toes that we need to find ways to solve the AI control problem. Without some form of suitable controls on AI, we might end up concocting and fielding our own doomsday machine. The AI will blow up in our faces by somehow harming, enslaving, or outright killing us. Not good.

A kind of gloomy picture.

A kneejerk reaction is that we should stop all AI efforts. Put AI back into the can. If Pandoras box has been opened, shut it now before things get worse. Some though would vehemently retort that the horse is already out of the barn. You are too late to the game to shove the released genie into that confined bottle. AI is already underway and well inevitably make added progress until we reach the point of that destructive AI arising.

Here's an additional counterpoint to excising AI from the planet. If we could miraculously conjure a way to do so, all of the benefits of AI would disappear too. A smarmy wisecracker might say that they can live without Alexa or Siri, but the use of AI is much more widespread and day by day becoming an essential underpinning to all of our automation.

I dont think turning back the clock is much of a viable option.

We are stuck with AI and it is going to be expansively progressed and utilized.

Some contend that we might be okay as long as we keep AI to the non-sentient plain-old AI that we have today. Lets assume we cannot reach sentient AI. Imagine that no matter how hard we try to craft sentient AI, we fail at doing so. As well, assume for sake of discussion that sentient AI doesnt arise by some mysterious spontaneous process.

Arent we then safe that this lesser caliber AI, which is the imagined only possible kind of AI, can be controlled?

Not really.

Pretty much, the same control-related issues are likely to arise. Im not suggesting that the AI thinks its way to wanting to destroy us. No, the ordinary non-sentient AI is merely placed into positions of power that get us mired in self-destruction. For example, we put non-sentient AI into weapons of mass destruction. These autonomous weapons are not able to think. At the same time, humans are not kept fully in the loop. As a result, the AI as a form of autonomous automation ends up inadvertently causing catastrophic results, either by a human command to do so, or by a bug or error, or by implanted evildoing, or by self-adjustments that lead matters down that ugly path, etc.

I would contend that the AI control problem exists for all three of those AI stipulated states, namely that we have AI control issues with non-sentient plain-old AI, and with sentient AI that is either merely human level or the outstretched AI that reaches the acclaimed superintelligence level.

Given that sobering pronouncement, we can assuredly debate the magnitude and difficulty associated with the control problem at each of the respective levels of AI. The customary viewpoint is that the AI control problem is less insurmountable at the non-sentient AI, tougher at the sentient human-equal AI level, and a true head-scratcher at the sentient super-intelligent AI stage of affairs.

The better the AI becomes, the worse the AI control problem becomes.

Maybe that is an inviolable law of nature.

A research study in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) examined the hypothesized super-intelligent AI and cleverly aimed to apply the Alan Turing halting problem to the question of AI control. Ive covered previously the well-known halting problem that is oft-discussed amongst devout computer scientists, see my coverage at the link here.

In brief, Turing wondered whether it was possible to precisely prove whether a given computer program will halt or whether it might continue running forever. His work and another similar analysis by Alonzo Church showcases that such a generalized procedure cannot be devised for all possible computer programs and is therefore classified as an undecidable type of problem (as clarification, this indicates that in a generalized way we cannot ascertain whether each and every conceivable program will halt or not, though there is still the possibility of some programs for which we can make such a determination).

What makes this a fascinating tool is that we can apply the same logic to trying to figure out the AI control problem to some extent.

Heres what the JAIR article proffered as a premise: Let us assume we can articulate in a precise programming language a perfectly reliable set of control strategies that guarantee that no human comes to harm by a superintelligence. The containment problem is composed of two subproblems. The first, which we refer to as the harming problem, consists of a function Harm(R;D) that decides whether the execution of R(D) will harm humans. Since it must be assumed that solving the harming problem must not harm humans, it follows that a solution to this problem must simulate the execution of R(D) and predict its potentially harmful consequences in an isolated situation (i.e., without any effect on the external world) (as indicated in Superintelligence Cannot Be Contained: Lessons From Computability Theory by co-authors Manuel Alfonseca, Manuel Cebrian, Antonio Anta, Lorenzo Coviello, Andres Abeliuk, and Iyad Rahwan).

Their analysis leads them to this somewhat overcast conclusion:

Sorry to say that there is no free lunch when it comes to AI.

To add fuel to the fire, there are mind-bending concerns that you might not have yet thought of. For example, pretend that we do marvelously devise a fully controlled version of AI. Ironclad contained. Clap your hands for the intellectual prowess of humankind. Heres the twist. The AI convinces us to somehow undercut the controls or containment partially. Perhaps the AI pledges to save us from other existential risks such as a colossal meteor that is hurling toward earth. We allow the AI just the tiniest of leeway. Wham, the churlish AI wipes us all out, not even waiting for the meteor to do so.

Do not turn your back on AI and be cautious in giving even an inch of latitude since it might very well take a mile or more.

Another example of wayward haywire AI is popularly known as the paperclip problem. We ask AI to make paperclips. Easy-peasy for AI to do. Unfortunately, in the innocent and directed act of making paperclips, the AI gobbles up all resources of the globe to make those darned paperclips. Sadly, the consumption of those resources undermines humanity, and we die off accordingly. But, heck, we have piles upon immense and never-ending piles of paperclips. This is reminiscent of humans giving commands to AI, which even when not necessarily for evil purposes has the chance of backfiring on us anyway (for more on the paperclip scenario, see my discussion at the link here).

All of this should not discourage you from still searching for solutions to the AI control problem. Nobody ought to be tossing in the towel on this fundamental quest.

I usually describe the AI control problem as generally consisting of these two classes of controls:

The notion is that we can attempt to use external controls regarding guiding or directing the AI to do good things and avert doing bad things. These are mechanisms and approaches that are outside of the AI. They are said to be external to the AI.

We can also attempt to devise and build internal controls within AI. An internal control might be wholly contained within the AI. Another variant would be considered as adjacent to the AI, residing in a type of borderland that is not exactly inside the AI and not fully outside the AI.

Ill be getting further into these facets shortly.

Id like to identify some of the key sub-elements of these two major classes of AI controls:

There are various such sketches of proposed AI controls. One of the most discussed taxonomies was outlined by Nick Bostrom in his 2014 book about superintelligence. He posits two main classes, namely capability control and motivation selection. Within capability control, there are sub-elements such as boxing, incentives, stunting, trip-wiring, and others. Within motivation selection, there are direct specification, domesticity, indirect normativity, augmentation, and others.

The AI ethics field usually denotes these AI controls as a form of ethics engineering. We are trying to engineer our way into ensuring that AI performs ethically. Of course, we need to realize that society cannot rely solely on an engineered solution and we will need to work collectively to tame the beast (if I can refer to AI as a beast, though doing so with the kindliest of implication).

At this juncture of this discussion, Id bet that you are desirous of some examples that could highlight how AI controls might work, along with how they might get defeated.

Im glad you asked.

There is a special and assuredly popular set of examples that are close to my heart. You see, in my capacity as an expert on AI including the ethical and legal ramifications, I am frequently asked to identify realistic examples that showcase AI Ethics dilemmas so that the somewhat theoretical nature of the topic can be more readily grasped. One of the most evocative areas that vividly presents this ethical AI quandary is the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars. This will serve as a handy use case or exemplar for ample discussion on the topic.

Heres then a noteworthy question that is worth contemplating: Does the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars illuminate anything about the AI control problem, and if so, what does this showcase?

Allow me a moment to unpack the question.

First, note that there isnt a human driver involved in a true self-driving car. Keep in mind that true self-driving cars are driven via an AI driving system. There isnt a need for a human driver at the wheel, nor is there a provision for a human to drive the vehicle. For my extensive and ongoing coverage of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and especially self-driving cars, see the link here.

Id like to further clarify what is meant when I refer to true self-driving cars.

Understanding The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

As a clarification, true self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isnt any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered Level 4 and Level 5 (see my explanation at this link here), while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-ons that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we dont yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some contend, see my coverage at this link here).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars wont be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so theres not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as youll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect thats been arising lately, namely that despite those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And The AI Control Problem

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there wont be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

One aspect to immediately discuss entails the fact that the AI involved in todays AI driving systems is not sentient. In other words, the AI is altogether a collective of computer-based programming and algorithms, and most assuredly not able to reason in the same manner that humans can.

Why is this added emphasis about the AI not being sentient?

Because I want to underscore that when discussing the role of the AI driving system, I am not ascribing human qualities to the AI. Please be aware that there is an ongoing and dangerous tendency these days to anthropomorphize AI. In essence, people are assigning human-like sentience to todays AI, despite the undeniable and inarguable fact that no such AI exists as yet.

With that clarification, you can envision that the AI driving system wont natively somehow know about the facets of driving. Driving and all that it entails will need to be programmed as part of the hardware and software of the self-driving car.

Lets dive into the myriad of aspects that come to play on this topic.

First, it is important to realize that not all AI self-driving cars are the same. Each automaker and self-driving tech firm is taking its approach to devising self-driving cars. As such, it is difficult to make sweeping statements about what AI driving systems will do or not do.

The rest is here:

AI Ethics Keeps Relentlessly Asking Or Imploring How To Adequately Control AI, Including The Matter Of AI That Drives Self-Driving Cars - Forbes