Whole Brain Emulation, as a platform for creating safe AGI

Anna Salamon and Carl Shulman

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

AGI: More change, faster

AGIs can be copied

AGIs can be copied

Serial speedup

Serial speedup

Solving coordination problems

Recursive self-improvement

Recursive self-improvement

Recursive self-improvement

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Intelligence + Goals= Change

More intelligence → More change

More intelligence → more change

Most ways of rearranging our world would kill us

Values vary starkly

Arbitrary, rewirable receptors

Threading the needle

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Copying specific individuals

WBEs share our values

WBEs share our values

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

WBEs can also make AGIs. Faster.

Eventually

WBEs

AGIstable

cessation of research

WBEs can't rapidly self-improve

But can try variations

Copy what works

Save states can improve work skills

SaveRestore

... and stabilize goals

SaveRestore

Single “upload clans” could take over

Single “upload clans” could take over

... or invent powerful AI

... or invent powerful AI

Values also lost through competition

See Nick Bostrom's "The Future of Human Evolution," http://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html

Fun

Happiness

Humangenes

Love

Play

Jobskills

Values also lost through competition

business as usual

human extinction

stable totalitarianism

controlled intelligence explosion

uncontrolled intelligence explosion

business as usual

human extinction

stable totalitarianism

controlled intelligence explosion

uncontrolled intelligence explosion

WBEs

So: is our shot better or worse with WBE?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

WBE can ease coordination

Races incentivize risk-taking

Safety infrastructure could be designed ahead of time

Arms races and time for precautions

1940 1950 1960 1970

Year of first nuclear testUS

1945USSR1949

UK1952

France1960

PRC1964

Forever in a day

1940 1950 1960 1970

USSR1949

UK1952

France1960

PRC1964

July 16,1945

July 17,1945

July 18,1945

July 19,1945

WBE as platform for further tech development

The possibility of a highly-controlled structure

Carefully chosen, tested components

Safety infrastructure could be designed ahead of time

... and stabilize goals

SaveRestore

Moral objections?

Even without “WBE systems”, advantages to WBEs

Reduced coordination problems

Taking the long view

Existence proof

?

WBE can ease the technical challenge

Subjectively slower computers

Moore's Law of Mad Science"Every eighteen months, the IQ required to destroy the world drops by one point." —Eliezer Yudkowsky

WBE safety monitors: as fast and numerous as AIs

WBE safety monitors: as fast and numerous as AIs

Cognitive enhancement for WBEs

But modified WBE can become inhuman fast

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Outline Background

AGI volatility Why risky

WBEs Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) WBE not stable But may help to build safe AI Can we make WBE come first?

Can we make WBE come first?

Inputs to WBE

Hardware Brain imaging Computational neuroscience

Hard to budge Moore's law And if we succeed, we accelerate AGI, too

Could automate brain imaging

Neuroscience models most likely bottleneck

Hardware Brain imaging Computational neuroscience

But same inputs also speed up brain-like AI

Hardware Brain imaging Computational neuroscience

How much boost each way?

?

WBE from partially controlled AI

So, what shall we do?

business as usual

human extinction

stable totalitarianism

controlled intelligence explosion

uncontrolled intelligence explosion

business as usual

human extinction

stable totalitarianism

controlled intelligence explosion

uncontrolled intelligence explosion

WBEs

Thank you

anna.salamon@singinst.orgcarl.shulman@singinst.org