The Shutdown Problem: An AI Engineering Puzzle for Decision Theorists
Elliott Thornley (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 10-2024, forthcoming in Philosophical Studies
I explain and motivate the shutdown problem: the problem of designing artificial agents that (1) shut down when a shutdown button is pressed, (2) don’t try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, and (3) otherwise pursue goals competently. I prove three theorems that make the difficulty precise. These theorems suggest that agents satisfying some innocuous-seeming conditions will often try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, even in cases where it’s costly to do so. I end by noting that these theorems can guide our search for solutions to the problem.
Other working papers
Respect for others’ risk attitudes and the long-run future – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
When our choice affects some other person and the outcome is unknown, it has been argued that we should defer to their risk attitude, if known, or else default to use of a risk avoidant risk function. This, in turn, has been claimed to require the use of a risk avoidant risk function when making decisions that primarily affect future people, and to decrease the desirability of efforts to prevent human extinction, owing to the significant risks associated with continued human survival. …
‘The only ethical argument for positive 𝛿’? – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
I consider whether a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations, an idea I call discounting for kinship. I respond to Parfit’s objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this…
In defence of fanaticism – Hayden Wilkinson (Australian National University)
Consider a decision between: 1) a certainty of a moderately good outcome, such as one additional life saved; 2) a lottery which probably gives a worse outcome, but has a tiny probability of a far better outcome (perhaps trillions of blissful lives created). Which is morally better? Expected value theory (with a plausible axiology) judges (2) as better, no matter how tiny its probability of success. But this seems fanatical. So we may be tempted to abandon expected value theory…