Here is the podcast where the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU) interviews Michael Vassar (MV) on 23-Sep-2009. The interview begins at 26:10 and the transcript below is 45:50 to 50:11.

SGU: Let me back up a little bit. So we're talking about, how do we keep a artificial intelligent or self recursive improving technology from essentially taking over the world and deciding that humanity is irrelevant or they would rather have a universe where we're not around or maybe where we're batteries or slaves or whatever. So one way that I think you've been focusing on so far is the "Laws of Robotics" approach. The Asimov approach.

MV: Err, no. Definitely not.

SGU: Well, in the broadest concept, in that you constrain the artificial intelligence in such a way...

MV: No. You never constrain, you never constrain a god.

SGU: But if you can't constrain it, then how can you keep it from deciding that we're irrelevent at some point?

MV: You don't need to constrain something that you're creating. If you create something, you get to designate all of its preferences, if you merely decide to do so.

SGU: Well, I think we're stumbling on semantics then. Because to constrain...

MV: No, we're not. We're completely not. We had a whole media campaign called "Three Laws Bad" back in 2005. <laughter>

SGU: I wasn't, I didn't mean to specifically refer to the Three Laws, but to the overall concept of...

MV: No, constraint in the most general sense is suicide.

SGU: So I'm not sure I understand that. Essentially, we're saying we want the AI to be benign, to take a broad concept, and not malignant. Right? So we're trying to close down certain paths by which it might develop or improve itself to eliminate those paths that will lead to a malignant outcome.

MV: You don't need to close down anything. You don't need to eliminate anything. We're creating the AI. Everything about it, we get to specify, as its creators. This is not like a child or a human that has instincts and impulses. A machine is incredibly hard not to anthropmorphize here. There's really very little hope of managing it well if you don't. We are creating a system, and therefore we're designating every feature of the system. Creating it to want to destroy us and then constrainimg it so that it doesn't do so is a very, very bad way of doing things.

SGU: Well, that's not what I'm talking about. Let me further clarify, because we're talking about two different things. You're talking about creating it in a certain form, but I'm talking about, once it gets to the point where then it starts recreating itself, we have to constrain the way it might create and evolve itself so that it doesn't lead to something that wants to destroy us. Obviously, we're not going to create something that wants to destroy us and then keep it from doing so. We're going to create something that maybe its initial state may be benign, but since you're also talking about recursive self improvement, we have to also keep it from evolving into something malignant. That's what I mean by constraining it.

MV: If we're talking a single AI, not an economy, or an ecosystem, if we're not talking about something that involves randomness, if we're not talking about something that is made from a human, changes in goals do not count as improvements. Changes in goals are necessarily accidents or compromises. But a unchecked, unconstrained AI that wants ice cream will never, however smart it becomes, decide that it wants chocolate candy instead.

SGU: But it could decide that the best way to make ice cream is out of human brains.

MV: Right. But it will only decide that the best way to make ice cream is out of human brains.

SGU: Right, that's what I'm talking about. So how do we keep it from deciding that it wants to make ice cream out of human brains? Which is kind of a silly analogy to arrive at, but... <laughter>

MV: Well, no... uh... how do we do so? We... okay. The Singularity Institute's approach has always been that we have to make it want to create human value. And if it creates human value out of human brains, that's okay. But human value is not an easy thing for humans to talk about or describe. In fact, it's only going to be able to create human value, with all probability, by looking at human brains.

SGU: Ah, that's interesting. But do you mean it will value human life?

MV: No, I mean it will value whatever it is that humans value.

Right, but surely they'd the the first to admit that the details about how to do that just aren't yet available. They do have their `moon-onna-stick' wishlist.