Fears rogue AI could lead to ultimate demise of humans
The terrifying specter of humans being wiped out by AI is being used to call for stronger guardrails on the growing tech industry.
In a detailed, equation-laden lecture on the economics of extinction, Deputy Productivity Minister Andrew Leigh will declare that rogue artificial intelligence or an engineered pandemic are the most likely ways to bring about the end of the human species within the next 100 years.
“Extinction means the complete extinction of our species. No survivors, no recovery, no second act,” Dr Leigh told the Tasmanian Economic Society on Thursday.
“A prediction by Australian philosopher Toby Ord puts the chance of such a catastrophe in the next century at one in six.”
Dr Leigh says policymakers could consider limits on what AI is allowed to do and how it approaches problems to reduce risk.
“The danger is not just that such a system would go ‘rogue’ in the science fiction sense,” the former economist will say.
“A government or corporation with access to machine intelligence far beyond the human level could gain such an overwhelming strategic advantage that normal forms of competition, geostrategic balancing, political adjustment, and international negotiations no longer function.”
The deputy minister will propose limiting the concept of “recursive personal improvement”, a hitherto theoretical concept in which artificial intelligence repeatedly upgrades its own code.
He will also suggest focusing on “wise AI,” where AI is imbued with intellectual humility and sensitivity to context.
“The appeal of this approach is that it targets one of the deeper flaws in current systems,” Dr Leigh will say.
“They are often forceful where they must be tentative, narrow-minded where they must consider competing points of view, and overconfident where they must reveal uncertainty.”
The federal government initially planned to impose mandatory guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence, but backed away in favor of using existing laws to govern the growing industry instead.
Dr Leigh was among a group of senior Labor figures advocating a lightweight approach to AI.
Dr Leigh says the other major risk to the human race is an engineered epidemic, spread deliberately or accidentally by a government or terrorist group.
“The risks involved depend on rapidly evolving pathogen development technologies, rapidly changing defense technologies, and actors whose intentions are difficult to observe,” he will say.
Dr Leigh will recommend increased monitoring, stricter laboratory practices and better public health systems to help reduce risk.
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