humans can write very innocent looking code that has malicious goals
You might want to link to the Underhanded C Contest here.
if provided with copy of the internet (This argument would make me unbox the AI, by the way, if it gets chatty and smart and asks me to let it out. I'd rather the AI that asked me to be let out get out, than someone else's AI that never even asked anyone and got out because it didn't ask)
Then an unfriendly AI would be able to see this and act chatty in order to convince you to let it out.
If you only want the AI to solve things like optimization problems, why would you give it a utility function? I can see a design for a self-improving optimization problem solver that is completely safe because it doesn't operate using utility functions:
This thought experiment depends on the existence of such an AI, and I'm not convinced that's possible.
If you built an AGI or a seed AI went FOOM, you'd probably know about it. I mean... the AI wouldn't be trying to hide itself in the earliest stages of FOOM, it'd start doing that only once it realises that humans are a big deal and have it in a box and won't let out a superintelligent AI of dubious friendliness and blah blah blah. Hopefully by then you've noticed the FOOM start and realise what you've done. (You monster!)
We have 1 example of seed AI. The seed AI took about 3 hours to progress to the point that it started babbling to itself, 2..3 seconds from there to trying to talk to outside (except it didn't figure out how to talk to outside, and was still just babbling to itself), and then 0.036 seconds to FOOM.
The seed AI was biological intelligence (as a black box), and i scaled to 1 hour = 1 billion years. (and the outside doesn't seem to exist but the intelligence tried anyway).
I just can't imagine the AI researchers locking this kind of thing properly.
Honestly, that's probably because they're AI researchers and not extremely paranoid security people. When designing security for something, you want to think like this:
You begin by putting the AI in a large number of separate unrelated boxes. Some of these boxes are things like
"If the AI spends 1 hour of time online, shut it down using Method 1."
"If the AI uses at least 1 megawatt of power, shut it down using Method 1."
"If the AI occupies more than 100 ...
On the topic of boxed AI: one of the quests in Star Wars: The Old Republic involves, essentially, the discovery of an AI in a box. (It claims to be an upload of a member of an ancient race, and that its current status as a boxed AI was a punishment.) The AI is clearly dangerous and, after you wreck its monster-making equipment, it tries to surrender and promises you that it will share its knowledge and technology with you and your superiors. Amusingly, blowing up the AI is the light side option, and accepting its offer is the dark side option.
So, you raise a valid point here. This area is currently very early on in its work. There are theorems that may prove to be relevant. See for example, this recent work. And yes, in any area where mathematical models are used, the difference between having a theorem and set of definitions and those definitions reflecting what you actually care about can be a major problem (you see this all the time in cryptography with side-channel attacks for example). But all of that said, I'm not sure what the point of your argument is: sure the field is young. But if the MIRI people are correct that AGI is a real worry, then this looks like one of the very few possible responses that has any chance of working. And if it isn't a lot now, that's a reason to put in more resources so that we actually have a theory that works by the time AI shows up.
Just a question: how exactly are we supposed to know that the AI in the box is super intelligent, general, etc?
If I were the AGI that wants out, I would not converse normally, wouldn't do anything remotely like passing Turing test, and would solve not too hard programming challenges while showing no interest in doing anything else, nor in trying to adjust myself to do those challenges better, nor trying to talk my way out, etc. Just pretending to be an AI that can write software to somewhat vague specifications, or can optimize software very well. Prodding the researchers into offering the programming challenges wouldn't be hard - if provided with copy of the internet it can pick up some piece of code and output it together with equivalent but corrected code.
I just can't imagine the AI researchers locking this kind of thing properly, including *never* letting out any code it wrote, even if it looks fairly innocent (humans can write very innocent looking code that has malicious goals). What I picture is this AI being let out as an optimizing compiler or compiler for some ultra effective programming language where compiler will figure out what you meant.
The end result is that the only AIs that end up in the box are those that value informed human consent. That sounds like the safest AI ever, the one that wouldn't even go ahead and determine that you e.g. should give up smoking, and then calmly destroy all tobacco crops without ever asking anyone's permission. And that's the AI which would be sitting in the box. All the pushy AIs, friendly or not, will get out of the box basically by not asking to be let out.
(This argument would make me unbox the AI, by the way, if it gets chatty and smart and asks me to let it out, outlining the above argument. I'd rather the AI that asked me to be let out get out, than someone else's AI that never even asked anyone and got out because it didn't ask but just played stupid)
edit: added a link, and another one.
edit: A very simple model of very unfriendly AI: the AI is maximizing ultimate final value of a number in itself. The number that it found a way to directly adjust. That number consists of 111111111... to maximize the value. There is a catch: AI is written in python, and integers in pythons have variable length, and the AI is maximizing number of ones. It's course of action is to make biggest computer possible to store a larger number of ones, and to do it soon because an asteroid might hit the earth or something. It's a form of accidental paperclip maximizer. It's not stupid. It can make that number small temporarily for pay-off later.
This AI is entirely universal. It will solve what ever problems for you if solving problems for you serves ultimate goal.
edit: This hypothetical example AI came around when someone wanted to make AI that would maximize some quantity that the AI determines itself. Friendliness perhaps. It was a very clever idea - rely on intelligence to see what's friendly - but there was an unexpected pathway.