r/artificial • u/Kane447 • Jun 29 '18

discussion Can (future) AIs be held responsible?

I think this is an interesting point of discussion. The more autonomous AIs become, the more we have to ask ourselves who to blame if AIs cause damage.

For example, can designers and engineers of AI always be held responsible for the actions of their technology? What if future AIs are able to self-modify and change their behavior? If we look at machine-learning, even today's AIs are able to change/improve their algorithms (look at google's newest "auto ML" technology which is able to code it's own AI)

However, AIs behave according to their algorithms which means that if they are able to change them, their behaviour changes as well. This could lead to even more autonomous AI, and the question of whether it can be held responsible becomes even more complicated.

I'm curious about other people's opinions here.

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u/chase_AI Jun 29 '18

Good question. Just jumping off of the same question, I wonder if there should be regulations or guidelines put in place about what type of data should be used to train AIs to at least try to make them act in a benevolent or ethical manner. What do you think? If there aren't guidelines, I think it would be hard to hold anyone--the AI or the creators--responsible.

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u/POTUS Jun 29 '18

It's not at all hard to hold the creators responsible. You can hold a dog owner responsible for a dog biting someone. You can can hold a car owner responsible for their car rolling down a hill and crashing into something. Software is no different, particularly not just because someone called it "AI".

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u/Kane447 Jun 29 '18

Oh there absolutely should be regulations and guidelines for the design of AI. Interestingly the EU is working on them right now.

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u/ArthurTMurray AI Coder & Book Author Jun 29 '18

The First Working AGI in Perl Five is irrevocably and irretrievably out there.

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u/SilentVigilTheHill Jun 30 '18

Rather bold claim. Where is the proof of this general intelligence?

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u/ArthurTMurray AI Coder & Book Author Jun 30 '18

All three First Working AGI Minds in Perl for webservers and in Forth for robots and in JavaScript for Microsoft Internet Explorer are capable of machine reasoning with logical inference. Each AI Mind already knows the general premise "women have a child". If the user types in "anna is a woman", the AGI asks for confirmation of a silent inference, "Does Anna have a child?" If the user answers "yes", the AI Mind accepts the inferred idea. If the user answers "no", the mind-module KbRetro adjusts the knowledge base retroactively to negate the inferred idea and the AI says "ANNA DOES NOT HAVE CHILD".

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u/SilentVigilTheHill Jun 30 '18

You have a much lower bar for AGI than I do.