Request for concrete AI takeover mechanisms

KatjaGrace

Any scenario where advanced AI takes over the world requires some mechanism for an AI to leverage its position as ethereal resident of a computer somewhere into command over a lot of physical resources.

One classic story of how this could happen, from Eliezer:

Crack the protein folding problem, to the extent of being able to generate DNA strings whose folded peptide sequences fill specific functional roles in a complex chemical interaction.
Email sets of DNA strings to one or more online laboratories which oﬀer DNA synthesis, peptide sequencing, and FedEx delivery. (Many labs currently oﬀer this service, and some boast of 72-hour turnaround times.)
Find at least one human connected to the Internet who can be paid, blackmailed, or fooled by the right background story, into receiving FedExed vials and mixing them in a specified environment.
The synthesized proteins form a very primitive “wet” nanosystem which, ribosomelike, is capable of accepting external instructions; perhaps patterned acoustic vibrations delivered by a speaker attached to the beaker.
Use the extremely primitive nanosystem to build more sophisticated systems, which construct still more sophisticated systems, bootstrapping to molecular nanotechnology—or beyond.

You can do a lot of reasoning about AI takeover without any particular picture of how the world gets taken over. Nonetheless it would be nice to have an understanding of these possible routes. For preparation purposes, and also because a concrete, plausible pictures of doom are probably more motivating grounds for concern than abstract arguments.

So MIRI is interested in making a better list of possible concrete routes to AI taking over the world. And for this, we ask your assistance.

What are some other concrete AI takeover mechanisms? If an AI did not have a solution to the protein folding problem, and a DNA synthesis lab to write off to, what else might it do?

We would like suggestions that take an AI from being on an internet-connected computer to controlling substantial physical resources, or having substantial manufacturing ability.

We would especially like suggestions which are plausible given technology that normal scientists would expect in the next 15 years. So limited involvement of advanced nanotechnology and quantum computers would be appreciated.

We welcome partial suggestions, e.g. 'you can take control of a self-driving car from the internet - probably that could be useful in some schemes'.

Thank you!

One classic story of how this could happen, from Eliezer:

Crack the protein folding problem, to the extent of being able to generate DNA strings whose folded peptide sequences fill specific functional roles in a complex chemical interaction.
Email sets of DNA strings to one or more online laboratories which oﬀer DNA synthesis, peptide sequencing, and FedEx delivery. (Many labs currently oﬀer this service, and some boast of 72-hour turnaround times.)
Find at least one human connected to the Internet who can be paid, blackmailed, or fooled by the right background story, into receiving FedExed vials and mixing them in a specified environment.
The synthesized proteins form a very primitive “wet” nanosystem which, ribosomelike, is capable of accepting external instructions; perhaps patterned acoustic vibrations delivered by a speaker attached to the beaker.
Use the extremely primitive nanosystem to build more sophisticated systems, which construct still more sophisticated systems, bootstrapping to molecular nanotechnology—or beyond.

So MIRI is interested in making a better list of possible concrete routes to AI taking over the world. And for this, we ask your assistance.

What are some other concrete AI takeover mechanisms? If an AI did not have a solution to the protein folding problem, and a DNA synthesis lab to write off to, what else might it do?

We would like suggestions that take an AI from being on an internet-connected computer to controlling substantial physical resources, or having substantial manufacturing ability.

We welcome partial suggestions, e.g. 'you can take control of a self-driving car from the internet - probably that could be useful in some schemes'.

Thank you!

We would especially like suggestions which are plausible given technology that normal scientists would expect in the next 15 years. So limited involvement of advanced nanotechnology and quantum computers would be appreciated.

I think that a more precise description of what your hypothetical AI can do would be useful. Just saying to exclude "magic" isn't very specific. There might not be a wide agreement as to what counts as "magic". Nanotechnology definitely does. I believe that so does fast economic domination by cracking the stock market and some people have proposed that. I think that even exploiting software and hardware bugs everywhere to gain total computing dominance should be excluded.

One way to define constraints would be to limit the AI to things that humans have been known to do but allow it to do them with superhuman efficiency. Something like:

Assume the AI has any skill that has ever been possessed by a human being.
It can execute it without making mistakes, getting tired or demotivated.
It can perform an arbitrary high amount of activities simultaneously. To keep with the "no magic" rule, each activity needs to be something a human could plausibly do. So, the AI can act like 10000 genius physicists each solving a different theoretical problem and writing a paper about it, but it can't be a super-physicist who formulates the theory of everything and gains superpowers by exploiting layers of exotic physical law heretofore unknown to humanity. We should also probably require the AI to get some additional computing power before it ramps up its multitasking too high.
It can open doors and knows no fear.

Some things such a hypothetical AI could do:

Earning money on the internet: I think it's possible nowadays to register an account on an online freelancing site, talk with clients, do work for them and receive money through electronic money transfer services without ever leaving your home. The only problem would be the need to show your face and your voice to the clients. Faking a real-time video feed probably falls under "things that humans can in principle do".

Moving money around: A crucial limitation is the availability of money management services that don't require signing anything physical before you can start using them. I suspect that quite a lot can be done but it's only a guess. The possibilities should also increase in the future but on the other hand, more regulations could be established making it more difficult. Bitcoin succeeding on a massive scale would make this a non-issue.

Getting more computing power: This sounds like a problem that's already solved. If you can earn money online and move it around then you can rent cloud computing resources. This will become easier and cheaper with time.

Acquiring some amount of control over physical reality: One way is robots. The AI by it's very existence is a solution to the problem of robot control. If it can build a robot capable of making some useful movements then it should also be able to make it perform those movements. This is good once AI has tools, raw materials, energy and a safe place to work on building even more robots but I don't know if current robotics technology would allow it to pass for human, even a really weird one who wears a trench coat all the time, when trying to buy those things.

Another way is recruiting helpers. The problem is that the constraint of making the AI only do human-possible things doesn't really work to prevent postulating "magic" in this area. The AI should profile somewhat gullible people on the internet, give them money, have them join a secret society/cult of its devising and make them fanatically devoted to itself through manipulation and threats, gradually growing the organization and expanding its operations and playing members against each other so that no one ever realizes who's the real boss. This all sounds doable in principle and it sounds like every specific action needed to be taken is something that plenty of people know how to do, but as a whole it comes across as a different version of "solve nanotech and then eat the world".

Another way is recruiting helpers. The problem is that the constraint of making the AI only do human-possible things doesn't really work to prevent postulating "magic" in this area.

This is not so magical on a small scale (given a bunch of unlikely premises). One can imagine an AI to copy Yudkowsky's success, by writing a much better, different "LessLessWrong", and ask people for money. Writing a bunch of blog posts would also require little of the sort of skills at which humans are naturally good at. All you need is some seemingly ge... (read more)

4David_Gerard12y

I appreciate your general point, but on this specific one ... "the internet of things" really does mean "eternal unfixable Heartbleed everywhere". Your DSL modem is probably a small Linux box, whose holes will never be fixed. When the attacker gets that box, >90% of fixed PCs are still running Windows. Etc. As a system administrator, I can quite see the modern network of ridiculously 'sploitable always-connected hardware as a playground for even a human-level intelligence, artificial or not, on the Internet. It is an utter, utter disaster, and it's only beginning.

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Request for concrete AI takeover mechanisms

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