MIRI Research Fellow Benya Fallenstein and Research Associate Ramana Kumar have co-authored a new paper on machine reflection, “Proof-producing reflection for HOL with an application to model polymorphism.” HOL stands for Higher Order Logic, here referring to a popular family of proof assistants based on Church’s type theory. Kumar and collaborators have previously formalized within… Read more »
Posts By: Rob Bensinger
December 2015 Newsletter
Research updates New papers: “Formalizing Convergent Instrumental Goals” and “Quantilizers: A Safer Alternative to Maximizers for Limited Optimization.” These papers have been accepted to the AAAI-16 workshop on AI, Ethics and Society. New at AI Impacts: Recently at AI Impacts New at IAFF: A First Look at the Hard Problem of Corrigibility; Superrationality in Arbitrary… Read more »
New paper: “Quantilizers”
MIRI Research Fellow Jessica Taylor has written a new paper on an error-tolerant framework for software agents, “Quantilizers: A safer alternative to maximizers for limited optimization.” Taylor’s paper will be presented at the AAAI-16 AI, Ethics and Society workshop. The abstract reads: In the field of AI, expected utility maximizers are commonly used as a… Read more »
New paper: “Formalizing convergent instrumental goals”
Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, a MIRI associate and UC Berkeley PhD candidate, has written a paper with contributions from MIRI Executive Director Nate Soares on strategies that will tend to be useful for most possible ends: “Formalizing convergent instrumental goals.” The paper will be presented as a poster at the AAAI-16 AI, Ethics and Society workshop. Steve… Read more »
November 2015 Newsletter
Research updates A new paper: Leó Szilárd and the Danger of Nuclear Weapons New at IAFF: Subsequence Induction A shortened version of the Reflective Oracles paper has been published in the LORI 2015 conference proceedings. General updates Castify has released professionally recorded audio versions of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Rationality: From AI to Zombies: Part 1, Part… Read more »
Edge.org contributors discuss the future of AI
In January, nearly 200 public intellectuals submitted essays in response to the 2015 Edge.org question, “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?” (available online). The essay prompt began: In recent years, the 1980s-era philosophical discussions about artificial intelligence (AI)—whether computers can “really” think, refer, be conscious, and so on—have led to new conversations about… Read more »
New report: “Leó Szilárd and the Danger of Nuclear Weapons”
Today we release a new report by Katja Grace, “Leó Szilárd and the Danger of Nuclear Weapons: A Case Study in Risk Mitigation” (PDF, 72pp). Leó Szilárd has been cited as an example of someone who predicted a highly disruptive technology years in advance — nuclear weapons — and successfully acted to reduce the risk…. Read more »
October 2015 Newsletter
Research updates New paper: Asymptotic Logical Uncertainty and The Benford Test New at IAFF: Proof Length and Logical Counterfactuals Revisited; Quantilizers Maximize Expected Utility Subject to a Conservative Cost Constraint General updates As a way to engage more researchers in mathematics, logic, and the methodology of science, Andrew Critch and Tsvi Benson-Tilsen are currently co-running… Read more »
