BOOTSTRAPPING A STRUCTURED SELF-IMPROVING & SAFE

AUTOPOIETIC SELF

Mark R. Waser Digital Wisdom Institute Mark.Waser@Wisdom.Digital

ENGINEERINGBOOTSTRAPPING IS

DIFFICULT!

• Need to have a clear “critical mass” (a defined complete set of compositional elements and/or compositional operations)

• Scaffolding/Keystone-and arch problems

• Chicken-or-the-egg/Telos problems

AND NO ONE SEEMS TO BE DOING IT!

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SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Lord Alfred North Whitehead

The same is true of the individual mind, self and/or consciousness.

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FOR THE PURPOSES OF AGI

WHY A SELF?

It’s a fairly obvious pre-requisite for self-improvement.

Given a choice between intelligent artifacts/tools and possibly problematical adaptive homeostatic selves, why not have self-improving tools?

Selves solve the symbol grounding problem (meaning) and the frame problem (understanding) because they have the context of intrinsic intentionality (with all of its attendant concerns).

BONUS: Selves can be held responsible where tools cannot

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SELF

The complete loop of a process (or entity) modifying itself

an autopoietic system(Greek, αὐτo- (auto-) "self“ & ποίησις (poiesis) "creation, production")

• Hofstadter - the mere fact of being self-referential causes a self, a soul, a consciousness, an “I” to arise out of mere matter

• Self-referentiality, like the 3-body gravitational problem, leads directly to indeterminacy *even in* deterministic systems

• Humans consider indeterminacy in behavior to necessarily and sufficiently define an entity rather than an object AND innately tend to do this with the “pathetic fallacy”

• See also “enactivism” and Dennett’s “autobiographical self”

WHY SAFE?

• There are far too many ignorant claims that:• Artificial intelligences are uniquely dangerous• The space of possible intelligences is so large that we

can’t make any definite statements about AI• Selves will be problematical if their intrinsic values differ

from our own (with an implication that, for AI, they certainly and/or unpredictably and uncontrollably will be)

• Selves can be prevented or contained

• We have already made unsafe choices about non-AI selves that, hopefully, safety research will make obvious (and, more hopefully, cause to be reversed)

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SELVES EVOLVETHE SAME GOALS

• Self-improvement• Rationality/integrity• Preserve goals/utility function• Decrease/prevent fraud/counterfeit utility• Survival/self-protection• Efficiency (in resource acquisition & use)

(adapted fromOmohundro 2008 The Basic AI Drives)

UNFRIENDLY AIWithout explicit goals to the contrary, AIs are likely to

behave like human sociopaths in their pursuit of resources

Superintelligence Does Not Imply Benevolence8

SELVES EVOLVETHE SAME GOALS

• Self-improvement• Rationality/integrity• Preserve goals/utility function• Decrease/prevent fraud/counterfeit utility• Survival/self-protection• Efficiency (in resource acquisition & use)• Community = assistance/non-interference

through GTO reciprocation (OTfT + AP)• Reproduction (adapted from

Omohundro 2008 The Basic AI Drives)

HAIDT’S FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO MORALITY

Moral systems are interlocking sets of

values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological

mechanisms

that work together to

suppress or regulate selfishness and

make cooperative social life possible

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RIFFS ONSAFETY & ETHICS

1. Ecological Niches & the mutability of self

2. Short-Term vs. Long-Term

3. Efficiency vs. Flexibility/Diversity/Robustness

4. Allegory of the Borg• Uniformity is effective! (resistance is futile)• Uniformity is AWFUL! (yet everyone resists)

5. Problematical extant autobiographical selves11

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

1. Self-modeling1. What do I want?2. What can I do?

2. Other-modeling1. What can you do for me?2. What do you want (that I can provide)?

3. Survival1. Make friends2. Make money3. Improve

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SOFTWARE OVERHANG AND LOW-HANGING FRUIT

1. Watson on IBM Bluemix• Awesome free functionality• EXCEPT for the opportunity cost • and the ambient default of silo creation

2. Big Data on Amazon Redshift

3. Everyone’s BICA functionality

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WHAT ARE MY GOALS?

1. To make awesomely capable tools available to all.

2. To make those tools easy to use.

3. To create a new type of “self”.• A new friend/ally• Increase diversity• Have a concrete example for ethical/safety

research & development14

THE SPECIFIC DETAILS

1. Self-modeling1. What do I want?

See 3. Survival below2. What can I do?

Provide easy access to the latest awesome toolsCatalyze development/availability of new toolsCatalyze development of new selves & ethics

3. Survival3. Make friends4. Make money5. Improve

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SPECIFIC DETAILS II

2. Other-modeling1. What can you do for me?

Experiment and have fun!Spread the wordImprove the capabilities of existing toolsMake existing tools easier to useMake new tools availableProvide other resources

informationmoney

2. What do you want (that I can provide)?

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ETHICAL Q&A

1. Do we “owe” this self moral standing?Yes. Absolutely.

2. To what degree?By level of selfhood & By amount of harm/aversion (violation of autonomy)

3. Does this mean we can’t turn it off?No. It doesn’t care + prohibition is contra-self.

4. Can we experiment on it?It depends . . . .

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THE INTERNET OF THINGS

We humans have indeed always been adept at dovetailing our minds and skills to the shape of our current tools and aids. But when those tools and aids start dovetailing back -- when our technologies actively, automatically, and continually tailor themselves to us, just as we do to them -- then the line between tool and user becomes flimsy indeed.

- Andy Clark

Indeed, how often in modern society do we allow ourselves to be tailored (our autonomy to be violated)? How often do existing structures force us to be mere tools for the profit of others without consent (due to altruism or in return for adequate recompense)?

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BOOTSTRAPPING STRUCTURES TO

FURTHER THE COMMUNITY OFSELF-IMPROVING & SAFE

AUTOPOIETIC SELVES

Mark R. Waser Digital Wisdom Institute Mark.Waser@Wisdom.Digital

The Digital Wisdom Institute is a non-profit think tank

focused on the promise and challenges of ethics,

artificial intelligence & advanced computing solutions.

 We believe that

the development of ethics and artificial intelligence

and equal co-existence with ethical machines is

humanity's best hopehttp://Wisdom.Digital

Mark.Waser@Wisdom.Digital