A Model For The Probability Of Nuclear War

Post Date March 08, 2018
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category nuclear war, publications

View the paper “A Model For The Probability Of Nuclear War”

The probability of nuclear war is a major factor in many important policy questions, but it has gotten little scholarly attention. This paper presents a model for calculating the total probability of nuclear war. The model is based on 14 interrelated scenarios for how nuclear war can break out, covering perhaps the entire range of nuclear war scenarios. Scenarios vary based on factors including whether a state intends to make a first strike attack, whether …

Read More »

Modeling and Interpreting Expert Disagreement About Artificial Superintelligence

Post Date December 12, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, publications

View the paper “Modeling and Interpreting Expert Disagreement About Artificial Superintelligence”

Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is artificial intelligence (AI) with capabilities that are significantly greater than human capabilities across a wide range of domains. A hallmark of the ASI issue is disagreement among experts. This paper demonstrates and discusses methodological options for modeling and interpreting expert disagreement about the risk of ASI catastrophe. Using a new model called ASI-PATH, the paper models a well-documented recent disagreement between Nick Bostrom and Ben Goertzel, two distinguished ASI experts. Three …

Read More »

A Survey of Artificial General Intelligence Projects for Ethics, Risk, and Policy

Post Date November 12, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, publications

View the paper “A Survey of Artificial General Intelligence Projects for Ethics, Risk, and Policy”

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is AI that can reason across a wide range of domains. While most AI research and development (R&D) is on narrow AI, not AGI, there is some dedicated AGI R&D. If AGI is built, its impacts could be profound. Depending on how it is designed and used, it could either help solve the world’s problems or cause catastrophe, possibly even human extinction.

This paper presents the first-ever survey …

Read More »

On the Promotion of Safe and Socially Beneficial Artificial Intelligence

Post Date October 10, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, publications

View the paper “On the Promotion of Safe and Socially Beneficial Artificial Intelligence”

As AI becomes more and more capable, its impacts on society are also getting larger. AI is now being used in medicine, transportation (self-driving cars), the military (drones), and many other sectors. The impacts of AI on society depend a lot on how the AI is designed. To improve AI design, two challenges must be met. There is the technical challenge of developing safe and beneficial technology designs, and there is the social …

Read More »

Liability Law for Present and Future Robotics Technology

Post Date October 10, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, law & policy, publications

View the paper “Liability Law for Present and Future Robotics Technology”

Advances in robotics technology are causing major changes in manufacturing, transportation, medicine, and a number of other sectors. While many of these changes are beneficial, there will inevitably be some harms. Who or what is liable when a robot causes harm? This paper addresses how liability law can and should account for robots, including robots that exist today and robots that potentially could be built at some point in the near or distant future. Already, …

Read More »

Towards an Integrated Assessment of Global Catastrophic Risk

Post Date October 06, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category integrated assessment, publications

View the paper “Towards an Integrated Assessment of Global Catastrophic Risk” 

Integrated assessment is an analysis of a topic that integrates multiple lines of research. Integrated assessments are thus inherently interdisciplinary. They are generally oriented toward practical problems, often in the context of public policy, and frequently concern topics in science and technology. This paper presents a concept for and some initial work towards an integrated assessment of global catastrophic risk (GCR). Generally speaking, GCR is the risk of significant harm to global human civilization. More …

Read More »

Social Choice Ethics in Artificial Intelligence

Post Date September 16, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, ethics, publications

View the paper “Social Choice Ethics in Artificial Intelligence”

A major approach to the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) is to use social choice, in which the AI is designed to act according to the aggregate views of society. This is found in the AI ethics of “coherent extrapolated volition” and “bottom-up ethics”. This paper shows that the normative basis of AI social choice ethics is weak due to the fact that there is no one single aggregate ethical view of society. Instead, the design of …

Read More »

Value of GCR Information: Cost Effectiveness-Based Approach for Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR) Reduction

Post Date August 24, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category publications

View the paper  “Value of GCR Information: Cost Effectiveness-Based Approach for Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR) Reduction”

In this paper, we develop and illustrate a framework for determining the potential value of global catastrophic risk (GCR) research in reducing uncertainties in the assessment of GCR risk levels and the effectiveness of risk-reduction options. The framework uses the decision-analysis concept of the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) in terms of the cost-effectiveness of GCR reduction. We illustrate these concepts using available information on impact risks from two types …

Read More »

Book Review: The Age of Em

Post Date June 12, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category publications

View the paper “Book Review: The Age of Em“

Book Review of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth, by Robin Hanson, Oxford University Press, 2016.

A new book by Robin Hanson, The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth, is reviewed. The Age of Emdescribes a future scenario in which human minds are uploaded into computers, becoming emulations or “ems”. In the scenario, ems take over the global economy by running on fast computers and copying themselves to multitask. …

Read More »

Reconciliation Between Factions Focused on Near-Term and Long-Term Artificial Intelligence

Post Date May 27, 2017
Comments Comments Closed
Author
Category artificial intelligence, publications

View the paper “Reconciliation Between Factions Focused on Near-Term and Long-Term Artificial Intelligence”

AI experts are divided into two factions. A “presentist” faction focuses on near-term AI, meaning the AI that either already exists or could be built within a small number of years. A “futurist” faction focuses on long-term AI, especially advanced AI that could equal or exceed human cognition. Each faction argues that its AI focus is the more important one, and the dispute between the two factions sometimes gets heated. This paper argues …

Read More »
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »