this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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This is an interesting topic that I remember reading almost a decade ago - the trans-human AI-in-a-box experiment. Even a kill-switch may not be enough against a trans-human AI that can literally (in theory) out-think humans. I'm a dev, though not anywhere near AI-dev, but from what little I know, true general purpose AI would also be somewhat of a mystery box, similar to how actual neutral network behavior is sometimes unpredicable, almost by definition. So controlling an actual full AI may be difficult enough, let alone an actual true trans-human AI that may develop out of AI self-improvement.
Also on unrelated note I'm pleasantly surprised to see no mention of chat gpt or any of the image generating algorithms - I think it's a bit of a misnomer to call those AI, the best comparison I've heard is that "chat gpt is auto-complete on steroids". But I suppose that's why we have to start using terms like general-purpose AI, instead of just AI to describe what I'd say is true AI.
how could a kill switch not be enough? can't run without power a.k.a pull the plug, destroy the hardware, done deal right?
So from my understanding the problem is that there's two ways to implement a kill switch: Either some automatic software/hardware way, or a human-decision based (or I guess a combination of the two).
The automatic way may be enough if it's absolutely foolproof, that's a separate discussion.
The ai box experiment I mention focuses on the human controlled decision to release an AI (or terminate it, which is roughly equivalent preposition). You can read the original here: https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox
But the jist of it is this: humans are the weak link. You may think that you have full freedom to decide when to terminate an AI, but if you have any contact with it, even one directional, which would be necessary in order to observe it's behaviour and determine when to trigger said killswitch, a truly trans-human AI would be able to think in meta-terms such that to expose you to information that will change your mind about terminating it.
Basically another way of saying this is that for each of us there exists some set of words we can read, such that they will change our minds about any subject. I don't know if that is actually true to be honest, but it's an interesting idea if you imagine the mind as a complex computer capable of self modification, and that vision/audio is a form of information input that is processed by our minds, so it seems possible that there should always exist some sort of input capable of modifying our minds to a desired state.
Another interesting, slightly related concept, is the idea of basilisk images (I believe originally written in some old scifi short story). Basilisk images are theoretically an image that when viewed by a human cause the brain to "crash" or essentially cause brain-death. This has the same principle behind it, that our brains are complex computers with vision being an input method, so there could be a way to force the brain to crash simply through visual input alone.
Again I don't know, nor do I think anyone really knows for sure if these things - both transhuman ai and basilisk images - are possible in the way they are described. Of course if a trans-human AI existed, by its very definition we would be unable to imagine what it could do.
Anyway, wrote this up on mobile, excuse any typos.
For some good fiction, that puts this in context, check out: