AI takeover and human disempowerment
Adam Bales (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 9-2024, forthcoming in The Philosophical Quarterly
Some take seriously the possibility of AI takeover, where AI systems seize power in a way that leads to human disempowerment. Assessing the likelihood of takeover requires answering empirical questions about the future of AI technologies and the context in which AI will operate. In many cases, philosophers are poorly placed to answer these questions. However, some prior questions are more amenable to philosophical techniques. What does it mean to speak of AI empowerment and human disempowerment? And what empirical claims must hold for the former to lead to the latter? In this paper, I address these questions, providing foundations for further evaluation of the likelihood of takeover.
Other working papers
The paralysis argument – William MacAskill, Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
Given plausible assumptions about the long-run impact of our everyday actions, we show that standard non-consequentialist constraints on doing harm entail that we should try to do as little as possible in our lives. We call this the Paralysis Argument. After laying out the argument, we consider and respond to…
Will AI Avoid Exploitation? – Adam Bales (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
A simple argument suggests that we can fruitfully model advanced AI systems using expected utility theory. According to this argument, an agent will need to act as if maximising expected utility if they’re to avoid exploitation. Insofar as we should expect advanced AI to avoid exploitation, it follows that we should expected advanced AI to act as if maximising expected utility. I spell out this argument more carefully and demonstrate that it fails, but show that the manner of its failure is instructive…
Against Anti-Fanaticism – Christian Tarsney (Population Wellbeing Initiative, University of Texas at Austin)
Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti-fanatics say you should not. Anti-fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti-fanaticism can be…