Machine ethics and robot rights are quickly becoming hot topics in artificial intelligence and robotics communities. We will argue that attempts to attribute moral agency and assign rights to all intelligent machines are misguided, whether applied to infrahuman or superhuman AIs, as are proposals to limit the negative effects of AIs by constraining their behavior. As an alternative, we propose a new science of safety engineering for intelligent artificial agents based on maximizing for what humans value. In particular, we challenge (...) the scientific community to develop intelligent systems that have human-friendly values that they provably retain, even under recursive self-improvement. (shrink)

This paper attempts to formalize and to address the ‘leakproofing’ of the Singularity problem presented by David Chalmers. The paper begins with the definition of the Artificial Intelligence Confinement Problem. After analysis of existing solutions and their shortcomings, a protocol is proposed aimed at making a more secure confinement environment which might delay potential negative effect from the technological singularity while allowing humanity to benefit from the superintelligence.

Various authors have argued that in the future not only will it be technically feasible for human minds to be transferred to other substrates, but this will become, for most humans, the preferred option over the current biological limitations. It has even been claimed that such a scenario is inevitable in order to solve the challenging, but imperative, multi-agent value alignment problem. In all these considerations, it has been overlooked that, in order to create a suitable environment for a particular (...) mind – for example, a personal universe in a computational substrate – numerous other potentially sentient beings will have to be created. These range from non-player characters to subroutines. This article analyzes the additional suffering and mind crimes that these scenarios might entail. We offer a partial solution to reduce the suffering by imposing on the transferred mind the perception of indicators to measure potential suffering in non-player characters. This approach can be seen as implementing literal empathy through enhanced cognition. (shrink)

An artificial general intelligence (AGI) might have an instrumental drive to modify its utility function to improve its ability to cooperate, bargain, promise, threaten, and resist and engage in blackmail. Such an AGI would necessarily have a utility function that was at least partially observable and that was influenced by how other agents chose to interact with it. This instrumental drive would conflict with the strong orthogonality thesis since the modifications would be influenced by the AGI’s intelligence. AGIs in highly (...) competitive environments might converge to having nearly the same utility function, one optimized to favorably influencing other agents through game theory. Nothing in our analysis weakens arguments concerning the risks of AGI. (shrink)

One of the primary, if not most critical, difficulties in the design and implementation of autonomous systems is the black-boxed nature of the decision-making structures and logical pathways. How human values are embodied and actualised in situ may ultimately prove to be harmful if not outright recalcitrant. For this reason, the values of stakeholders become of particular significance given the risks posed by opaque structures of intelligent agents (IAs). This paper explores how decision matrix algorithms, via the belief-desire-intention model for (...) autonomous vehicles, can be designed to minimize the risks of opaque architectures. Primarily through an explicit orientation towards designing for the values of explainability and verifiability. In doing so, this research adopts the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach as a principled framework for the incorporation of such values within design. VSD is recognized as a potential starting point that offers a systematic way for engineering teams to formally incorporate existing technical solutions within ethical design, while simultaneously remaining pliable to emerging issues and needs. It is concluded that the VSD methodology offers at least a strong enough foundation from which designers can begin to anticipate design needs and formulate salient design flows that can be adapted to the changing ethical landscapes required for utilisation in autonomous vehicles. (shrink)

As AI technologies increase in capability and ubiquity, AI accidents are becoming more common. Based on normal accident theory, high reliability theory, and open systems theory, we create a framework for understanding the risks associated with AI applications. This framework is designed to direct attention to pertinent system properties without requiring unwieldy amounts of accuracy. In addition, we also use AI safety principles to quantify the unique risks of increased intelligence and human-like qualities in AI. Together, these two fields give (...) a more complete picture of the risks of contemporary AI. By focusing on system properties near accidents instead of seeking a root cause of accidents, we identify where attention should be paid to safety for current generation AI systems. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist. -/- Design/methodology/approach This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe (...) trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos. -/- Findings Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible. -/- Originality/value Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of authoritative essays exploring the central questions raised by the conjectured technological singularity. In informed yet jargon-free contributions written by active research scientists, philosophers and sociologists, it goes beyond philosophical discussion to provide a detailed account of the risks that the singularity poses to human society and, perhaps most usefully, the possible actions that society and technologists can take to manage the journey to any singularity in a way that ensures a positive rather than a (...) negative impact on society. The discussions provide perspectives that cover technological, political and business issues. The aim is to bring clarity and rigor to the debate in a way that will inform and stimulate both experts and interested general readers. (shrink)

In the last years, artificial intelligence (AI) safety gained international recognition in the light of heterogeneous safety-critical and ethical issues that risk overshadowing the broad beneficial impacts of AI. In this context, the implementation of AI observatory endeavors represents one key research direction. This paper motivates the need for an inherently _transdisciplinary_ AI observatory approach integrating diverse retrospective and counterfactual views. We delineate aims and limitations while providing hands-on-advice utilizing _concrete practical examples_. Distinguishing between unintentionally and intentionally triggered AI risks (...) with diverse socio-psycho-technological impacts, we exemplify a _retrospective descriptive analysis_ followed by a _retrospective counterfactual risk analysis_. Building on these AI observatory tools, we present near-term transdisciplinary guidelines for AI safety. As further contribution, we discuss _differentiated_ and tailored long-term directions through the lens of two disparate modern AI safety paradigms. For simplicity, we refer to these two different paradigms with the terms _artificial stupidity_ (AS) and _eternal creativity_ (EC) respectively. While both AS and EC acknowledge the need for a hybrid cognitive-affective approach to AI safety and overlap with regard to many short-term considerations, they differ fundamentally in the nature of multiple envisaged long-term solution patterns. By compiling relevant underlying _contradistinctions_, we aim to provide _future-oriented_ incentives for constructive dialectics in practical and theoretical AI safety research. (shrink)

Special Issue “Risks of artificial general intelligence”, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 26/3 (2014), ed. Vincent C. Müller. http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/teta20/26/3# - Risks of general artificial intelligence, Vincent C. Müller, pages 297-301 - Autonomous technology and the greater human good - Steve Omohundro - pages 303-315 - - - The errors, insights and lessons of famous AI predictions – and what they mean for the future - Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala & Seán S. Ó hÉigeartaigh - pages 317-342 - - (...) - The path to more general artificial intelligence - Ted Goertzel - pages 343-354 - - - Limitations and risks of machine ethics - Miles Brundage - pages 355-372 - - - Utility function security in artificially intelligent agents - Roman V. Yampolskiy - pages 373-389 - - - GOLEM: towards an AGI meta-architecture enabling both goal preservation and radical self-improvement - Ben Goertzel - pages 391-403 - - - Universal empathy and ethical bias for artificial general intelligence - Alexey Potapov & Sergey Rodionov - pages 405-416 - - - Bounding the impact of AGI - András Kornai - pages 417-438 - - - Ethics of brain emulations - Anders Sandberg - pages 439-457. (shrink)

Papers from the conference on AI Risk (published in JETAI), supplemented by additional work. --- If the intelligence of artificial systems were to surpass that of humans, humanity would face significant risks. The time has come to consider these issues, and this consideration must include progress in artificial intelligence (AI) as much as insights from AI theory. -- Featuring contributions from leading experts and thinkers in artificial intelligence, Risks of Artificial Intelligence is the first volume of collected chapters dedicated to (...) examining the risks of AI. The book evaluates predictions of the future of AI, proposes ways to ensure that AI systems will be beneficial to humans, and then critically evaluates such proposals. 1 Vincent C. Müller, Editorial: Risks of Artificial Intelligence - 2 Steve Omohundro, Autonomous Technology and the Greater Human Good - 3 Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala and Sean O’Heigeartaigh, The Errors, Insights and Lessons of Famous AI Predictions - and What they Mean for the Future - 4 Ted Goertzel, The Path to More General Artificial Intelligence - 5 Miles Brundage, Limitations and Risks of Machine Ethics - 6 Roman Yampolskiy, Utility Function Security in Artificially Intelligent Agents - 7 Ben Goertzel, GOLEM: Toward an AGI Meta-Architecture Enabling Both Goal Preservation and Radical Self-Improvement - 8 Alexey Potapov and Sergey Rodionov, Universal Empathy and Ethical Bias for Artificial General Intelligence - 9 András Kornai, Bounding the Impact of AGI - 10 Anders Sandberg, Ethics and Impact of Brain Emulations 11 Daniel Dewey, Long-Term Strategies for Ending Existential Risk from Fast Takeoff - 12 Mark Bishop, The Singularity, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI -. (shrink)

Computer simulations are an exciting tool that plays important roles in many scientific disciplines. This has attracted the attention of a number of philosophers of science. The main tenor in this literature is that computer simulations not only constitute interesting and powerful new science, but that they also raise a host of new philosophical issues. The protagonists in this debate claim no less than that simulations call into question our philosophical understanding of scientific ontology, the epistemology and semantics of models (...) and theories, and the relation between experimentation and theorising, and submit that simulations demand a fundamentally new philosophy of science in many respects. The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate these claims. Our conclusion will be sober. We argue that these claims are overblown and that simulations, far from demanding a new metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and methodology, raise few if any new philosophical problems. The philosophical problems that do come up in connection with simulations are not specific to simulations and most of them are variants of problems that have been discussed in other contexts before. (shrink)

BackgroundThe theory and practice of ethics consultations (ECs) in health care are still characterized by many controversies, including, for example, the practice of giving recommendations. These controversies are complicated by an astonishing lack of evidence in the whole field. It is not clear how often a recommendation is issued in ethics consultations and when and why this step is taken. Especially in a facilitation model in which giving recommendations is optional, more data would be helpful to evaluate daily practice, ensure (...) that this practice is in line with the overarching goals of this approach and support the development of standards.MethodsWe analyzed all consultations requested from an EC service working under a facilitation approach at a maximum-care university hospital in Germany over a period of more than 10 years. Our aim was to better understand why—and under what circumstances—some consultation requests result in a recommendation, whereas others can be sufficiently addressed solely by facilitated meetings. We especially wanted to know when and why clients felt the need for clear advice from the EC service while in other cases they did not. We compared ethics consultations in terms of the differences between cases with and without recommendations issued by the ethics consultants using χ2 difference tests and Welch’s t-test.ResultsA total of 243 ECs were carried out between September 2008 and December 2019. In approximately half of the cases, a recommendation was given. All recommendations were issued upon the request of clients. When physicians asked for an EC, the consultation was significantly more likely to result in a recommendation than when the EC was requested by any other party. ECs in cases on wards with ethics rounds resulted in comparably fewer recommendations than those in wards without ethics rounds. When interpersonal conflicts were part of the problem or relatives were present in the meeting, clients less frequently asked for a recommendation.ConclusionFrom the client’s point of view, there does not seem to be only one “right” way to provide ethics consultations, but rather several. While facilitated meetings are obviously appreciated by clients, there also seem to be situations in which a recommendation is desired (especially by physicians). Further empirical and theoretical research is needed to validate our single-center results and re-evaluate the role of recommendations in ethics consultations. (shrink)

The following article is an addendum to Reinhardt Brandt’s article included above, written for the needs of Polish readers. Brandt discusses the famous Longinus’ treatise while including its entire historic context. The substantial threads including the specifics Longinus’ piece as a treatise on the field of aesthetics that were contained in Brandt’s work have been, on the other hand, reminded in this article.

The aim of this paper is two-fold. Recently, Lewis has presented an argument, now known as the `counting anomaly', that the spontaneous localization approach to quantum mechanics, suggested by Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber, implies that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. I will take this argument as the starting point for a discussion of the property structure of realist collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics in general. At the end of this I present a proof of the fact that (...) the composition principle, which holds true in Standard Quantum Mechanics, fails in all realist collapse interpretations. On the basis of this result I reconsider the counting anomaly and show that what lies at the heart of the anomaly is the failure to appreciate the peculiarities of the property structure of collapse interpretations. Once this flaw is uncovered, the anomaly vanishes. (shrink)

In the paper the problem of definability and undefinability of the concept of satisfaction and truth is considered. Connections between satisfaction and truth on the one hand and consistency of certain systems of omega-logic and transfinite induction on the other are indicated.

Cette biographie de référence éclaire d'un jour nouveau tout un pan de la vie intellectuelle du XXe siècle, celui de ces universitaires juifs allemands obligés de fuir le IIIe Reich et qui, d'étape en étape, finirent par trouver refuge aux Etats-Unis. Le livre associe la présentation des grandes étapes de la pensée et de l'œuvre de Hannah Arendt aux événements historiques qui la sollicitent et au tableau des amitiés et des cercles successifs. Si la liaison qu'elle eut brièvement au début (...) des années 30 avec Heidegger est désormais bien connue, d'autres aspects de son existence, pourtant du plus haut intérêt, le sont moins : son rapprochement avec le sionisme sous l'égide de Kurt Blumenfeld avant et pendant la guerre, son mariage avec Günther Stern, puis avec Heinrich Blücher, sa longue amitié aux Etats-Unis avec la romancière Mary McCarthy ou avec le poète W.H. Auden. Polémiste redoutable et critique cinglante, constante dans ses fidélités, et en premier lieu dans sa relation avec cette grande conscience allemande que fut Karl Jaspers, Arendt a traversé tous les débats du siècle, sans jamais céder ni sur son indépendance d'esprit ni sur sa lucidité : face au totalitarisme, dont elle forge le concept, mais aussi face au racisme et aux mouvements pour les droits civils aux Etats-Unis, face à la création de l'Etat d'Israël et au devenir du sionisme, face à l'engagement américain dans la guerre du Vietnam, face à la révolte de la jeunesse des années 60. Ne s'abandonnant jamais à la tentation aristocratique du retrait, elle accomplit une œuvre de pensée sans avoir besoin de décrier le monde, mais en prônant l'amour de la réalité, donnant ainsi l'image rare d'une vie de penseur à la hauteur de ses accomplissements spéculatifs. Indisponible depuis une dizaine d'années, cet ouvrage a été mis à jour et enrichi d'une nouvelle préface de l'auteur. (shrink)

The vertebrate heart comprises a variety of cell types, the majority of which are cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle and endothelial cells. Their origin is still an intriguing research topic and the question is whether these cells derive from a common or from multiple distinct progenitor cell(s). Three recent publications not only suggest the existence of a single progenitor cell that can give rise to cardiovascular lineages but additionally uncovered, at least in part, the molecular identity of such a multipotent precursor cell.1-3 (...) These findings constitute major progress in the quest for stem-cell therapies for cardiac diseases. BioEssays 29:422–426, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The roles models play in science have long been recognised and sparked rich and varied philosophical debates. In recent years attention has also been paid to the computational techniques used in the sciences, and the question arose what the implications were of the use of computer simulations for our understanding of scientific modelling, and science more generally. This was the subject of the conference “Models and Simulations”, which took place at the IHPST in Paris in June 2006. Selected papers of (...) that conference appeared in a special issue of this journal (Synthese 169(3) (2009)). After the conference there was a general feeling that there still was much ground to cover, and so we decided to organize a follow up a year later. “Models and Simulations 2” took place in October 2007 at the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS) in the Netherlands. The conference was made possible due to generous financial support from IHPST (Paris, CNRS), Universitat de Barcelona, TiLPS (Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science) and the Evert Willem Beth Foundation. The papers in this special issue were presented at the conference and selected after a double-blind review process. We would like to thank the authors and referees of the papers for their work, and Vincent Hendricks and John Symons for their support of the project of another special issue on models and simulations. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the presentation of Chwistek’s philosophical ideas concerning logic and mathematics. The main feature of his philosophy was nominalism, which found full expression in his philosophy of mathematics. He claimed that the object of the deductive sciences, hence in particular of mathematics, is the expression being constructed in them according to accepted rules of construction. He treated geometry, arithmetic, mathematical analysis and other mathematical theories as experimental disciplines, and obtained in this way a nominalistic interpretation of (...) them. The fate of Chwistek’s philosophical conceptions was similar to the fate of his logical conceptions. The system of rational meta-mathematics was not developed by him in detail. He worked on his own ideas without any collaboration with other logicians, mathematicians or philosophers. His investigations were not in the mainstream of the development of logic and philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

In the paper the views and tendencies in the philosophical reflection on mathematics in Poland between the wars are analyzed. Views of most outstanding representatives of Lvov–Warsaw Philosophical School and of Polish Mathematical School are presented. Their influence on logical and mathematical researches is considered.

Siempre se ha reconocido en Pirrón de Élide el inicio puntual del escepticismo griego. Sabemos ya hoy que esta información, sesgada, proviene más de la necesidad de Enesidemo de refundar el movimiento, que de la realidad filosófica. En este artículo demostramos que Pirrón, ni tuvo consciencia de ser un escéptico, ni, en rigor, inició ninguna nueva corriente. Su deslizamiento, y posterior reconocimiento, hacia el escepticismo, debe más bien encuadrarse en el natural desarrollo de la filosofía abderita, a través de Metrodoro (...) de Quíos, discípulo de Demócrito, Anaxarco maestro de Pirrón y Nausífanes su discípulo. Y todo debido al afán aventurero del personaje de Élide al enrolarse en el séquito de Alejandro Magno. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of social support received by students of music schools in the context of their musical achievements. The theoretical part of this article contains the characteristics of factors related to the musical achievements of students; the support they receive from their environment is essential for their success in the process of musical education and their subsequent artistic career, in addition to their musical abilities and traits of personality. The research part is devoted to detailed analysis (...) of the support level received by music school students and its correlation to their level of musical achievement. Social support is analysed with a view to its structure, distinguishing the following kinds of support: emotional, evaluative, informative and instrumental received from people who are significant to the music school student and indicates the essential presence of support in the process of musical achievement. Moreover, as part of the presentation of the study, the authors introduce their original tool for measuring social support tailored to the realities of music schools - the Scale of Social Support of the Students of Music Schools. This tool may be applied in the work of educational psychologists and teachers in music schools. (shrink)

this study is to analyse the biomechanical influence of the been studied extensively, little is known how it is influclinical data on stability of the ankle joint. A two-dimenenced by the osseous joint configuration. Based on lateral..

Purpose of the article: Most regional macroeconomic processes may not be adequately analyzed without accounting for their spatial nature: regional distances, interactions between neighbors, spill-over effects and interdependencies. This contribution focuses on various factors ruling unemployment dynamics in the Visegrad Group countries and their major economic partners: Germany and Austria. The analysis is performed at the NUTS2 level. Methodology/methods: Spatial econometrics is a unique tool for a broad range of quantitative analyses and evaluations. Spatial econometric models are based on geo-coded (...) data. Spatial econometrics and regional competitiveness paradigms are combined into different types of regression model specifications describing unemployment dynamics. Alternative spatial structures are used for verification of stability in estimated model properties. Scientific aim: We aim to provide a detailed empirical evaluation of spatially determined factors of regional unemployment dynamics, along with insight into the robustness of such approach. Both conceptually and parametrically varying neighbor definitions are used to provide evidence for model evaluation. Findings: We find strong positive spatial dependence patterns in the estimated models, robust against varying neighborhood definitions. Our results strongly support the importance of regional and potentially cross-border cooperation in macroeconomic policies addressing unemployment. The estimated models also underline the importance of using spatial models, by pointing out the bias in OLS-estimated models. Conclusions and limits: Spatial approach to econometric analysis provides important insight and robustness to a broad range of unemployment analyses that may be carried out using regional data. At the same time, it should be noted that this article focuses mostly on the spatial and stability aspects of model estimation, while leaving out other interesting topics such as spill-over effects calculations as based on estimated models. Also, estimations provided in this article might benefit from spatial panel data-based methods - once data availability issues are sorted. (shrink)

We consider expansions of models of Peano arithmetic to models ofA 2 s -¦Δ 1 1 +Σ 1 1 −AC which consist of families of sets definable by nonstandard formulas.

Already after sending the first two parts of this paper ([5], [6]) to the editor, two new results on the subject have appeared — namely the results of G. Wilmers and Z. Ratajczyk. So for the sake of completeness let us review them here.