Sound Research WIKINDX |
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Resource type: Report/Documentation Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Long2024 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: AI/Machine Learning Keywords: Agency, Human Creativity Creators: Birch, Butlin, Chalmers, Finlinson, Fish, Harding, Long, Pfau, Sebo, Sims Publisher: Anthropic |
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Abstract |
In this report, we argue that there is a realistic possibility that some AI systems will be conscious and/or robustly agentic in the near future. That means that the prospect of AI welfare and moral patienthood — of AI systems with their own interests and moral significance — is no longer an issue only for sci-fi or the distant future. It is an issue for the near future, and AI companies and other actors have a responsibility to start taking it seriously. We also recommend three early steps that AI companies and other actors can take: They can (1) acknowledge that AI welfare is an important and difficult issue (and ensure that language model outputs do the same), (2) start assessing AI systems for evidence of consciousness and robust agency, and (3) prepare policies and procedures for treating AI systems with an appropriate level of moral concern. To be clear, our argument in this report is not that AI systems definitely are — or will be — conscious, robustly agentic, or otherwise morally significant. Instead, our argument is that there is substantial uncertainty about these possibilities, and so we need to improve our understanding of AI welfare and our ability to make wise decisions about this issue. Otherwise there is a significant risk that we will mishandle decisions about AI welfare, mistakenly harming AI systems that matter morally and/or mistakenly caring for AI systems that do not. |
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p.21
"Of course, in humans and many other animals, a rich understanding of social and environmental context and the expressive power of language, among other capabilities, make substantial contributions to our capacities for robust agency as well. But deep RL has made it possible for AI agents to be virtually embodied and situated in environments comparable to those inhabited by animals, and so it may be a compelling foundation for projects to emulate natural agency."
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Keywords: Agency Human Creativity |