Recently Phil Torres wrote an article  where he raises a new topic in existential risks research: the question about who could be possible agents in the creation of a global catastrophe. Here he identifies five main types of agents, and two main reasons why they will create a catastrophe (error and terror).  

He discusses the following types of agents: 

 

(1) Superintelligence. 

(2) Idiosyncratic actors.  

(3) Ecoterrorists.  

(4) Religious terrorists.  

(5) Rogue states.  

 

Inspired by his work I decided to create a map of all possible agents as well as their possible reasons for creating x-risks. During this work some new ideas appeared.  

I think that a significant addition to the list of agents should be superpowers, as they are known to have created most global risks in the 20th century; corporations, as they are now on the front line of AGI creation; and pseudo-rational agents who could create a Doomsday weapon in the future to use for global blackmail (may be with positive values), or who could risk civilization’s fate for their own benefits (dangerous experiments). 

The X-risks prevention community could also be an agent of risks if it fails to prevent obvious risks, or if it uses smaller catastrophes to prevent large risks, or if it creates new dangerous ideas of possible risks which could inspire potential terrorists.  

The more technology progresses, the more types of agents will have access to dangerous technologies, even including teenagers. (like: "Why This 14-Year-Old Kid Built a Nuclear Reactor” ) 

In this situation only the number of agents with risky tech will matter, not the exact motivations of each one. But if we are unable to control tech, we could try to control potential agents or their “medium" mood at least. 

The map shows various types of agents, starting from non-agents, and ending with types of agential behaviors which could result in catastrophic consequences (error, terror, risk etc). It also shows the types of risks that are more probable for each type of agent. I think that my explanation in each case should be self evident. 

We could also show that x-risk agents will change during the pace of technological progress. In the beginning there are no agents, and later there are superpowers, and then smaller and smaller agents, until there will be millions of people with biotech labs at home. In the end there will be only one agent - SuperAI.  

So, a lessening the number of agents, and increasing their ”morality” and intelligence seem to be the most plausible directions in lowering risks. Special organizations or social networks may be created to control the most risky type of agents. Differing agents probably need differing types of control. Some ideas of this agent-specific control are listed in the map, but a real control system should be much more complex and specific.

The map shows many agents, some of them real and exist now (but don’t have dangerous capabilities), and some are only possible in moral sense or in technical sense.

 

So there are 4 types of agents, and I show them in the map in different colours:

 

1) Existing and dangerous, that is already having technology to destroy the humanity. That is superpowers, arrogant scientists – Red

2) Existing, and willing to end the world, but lacking needed technologies. (ISIS, VHEMt) - Yellow

3) Morally possible, but don’t existing. We could imagine logically consistent value systems which may result in human extinction. That is Doomsday blackmail. - Green

4) Agents, which will pose risk only after supertechnologies appear, like AI-hackers, children biohackers. - Blue

 

Many agents types are not fit for this classification so I rest them white in the map. 

 

The pdf of the map is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/agentrisk11.pdf

 

 

 

 

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIRI is running an AMA on the Effective Altruism Forum tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct. 11): Ask MIRI Anything. Questions are welcome in the interim!

Nate also recently posted a more detailed version of our 2016 fundraising pitch to the EA Forum. One of the additions is about our first funding target:

We feel reasonably good about our chance of hitting target 1, but it isn't a sure thing; we'll probably need to see support from new donors in order to hit our target, to offset the fact that a few of our regular donors are giving less than usual this year.

The Why MIRI's Approach? section also touches on new topics that we haven't talked about in much detail in the past, but plan to write up some blog posts about in the future. In particular:

Loosely speaking, we can imagine the space of all smarter-than-human AI systems as an extremely wide and heterogeneous space, in which "alignable AI designs" is a small and narrow target (and "aligned AI designs" smaller and narrower still). I think that the most important thing a marginal alignment researcher can do today is help ensure that the first generally intelligent systems humans design are in the “alignable” region. I think that this is unlikely to happen unless researchers have a fairly principled understanding of how the systems they're developing reason, and how that reasoning connects to the intended objectives.

Most of our work is therefore aimed at seeding the field with ideas that may inspire more AI research in the vicinity of (what we expect to be) alignable AI designs. When the first general reasoning machines are developed, we want the developers to be sampling from a space of designs and techniques that are more understandable and reliable than what’s possible in AI today.

In other news, we've uploaded a new intro talk on our most recent result, "Logical Induction," that goes into more of the technical details than our previous talk.

See also Shtetl-Optimized and n-Category Café for recent discussions of the paper.

I've been watching Steven Universe with my fiancee (a children's cartoon on Cartoon Network by Rebecca Sugar), and it wasn't until I got to Season 3 that I realized there's been a cryonics metaphor running in the background since the very first episode. If you want to introduce your kids to the idea of cryonics, this series seems like a spectacularly good way to do it.

If you don't want any spoilers, just go watch it, then come back.

Otherwise, here's the metaphor I'm seeing, and why it's great:

• In the very first episode, we find out that the main characters are a group called the Crystal Gems, who fight 'gem monsters'. When they defeat a monster, a gem is left behind, which they lock in a bubble-forcefield and store in their headquarters.

• One of the Crystal Gems is injured in a training accident, and we find out that their bodies are just projections; each Crystal Gem has a gem located somewhere on their body, which contains their minds. So long as their gem isn't damaged, they can project a new body after some time to recover. So we already have the insight that minds and bodies are separate.

• This is driven home by a second episode where one of the Crystal Gems has their crystal cracked; this is actually dangerous to their mind, not just body, and is treated as a dire emergency instead of merely an inconvenience.

• Then we eventually find out that the gem monsters are actually corrupted members of the same species as the Crystal Gems. They are 'bubbled' and stored in the temple in hopes of eventually restoring them to sanity and their previous forms.

• An attempt is made to cure one of the monsters, which doesn't fully succeed, but at least restores them to sanity. This allows them to remain unbubbled and to be reunited with their old comrades (who are also corrupted). This was the episode where I finally made the connection to cryonics.

• The Crystal Gems are also revealed to be over 5000 years old, and effectively immortal. They don't make a big deal out of this; for them, this is totally normal.

• This also implies that they've made no progress in curing the gem monsters in 5000 years, but that doesn't stop them from preserving them anyway.

• Finally, a secret weapon is revealed which is capable of directly shattering gems (thus killing the target permanently), but the use of it is rejected as unethical.

So, all in all, you have a series where when someone is hurt or sick in a way that you can't help, you preserve their mind in a safe way until you can figure out a way to help them. Even your worst enemy deserves no less.

 

Also, Steven Universe has an entire episode devoted to mindfulness meditation.  

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

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Three known attempts to make a map of x-risks prevention in the field of science exist:

1. First is the list from the Global Catastrophic Risks Institute in 2012-2013, and many links there are already not working:

2. The second was done by S. Armstrong in 2014

3. And the most beautiful and useful map was created by Andrew Critch. But its ecosystem ignores organizations which have a different view of the nature of global risks (that is, they share the value of x-risks prevention, but have another world view).

In my map I have tried to add all currently active organizations which share the value of global risks prevention.

It also regards some active independent people as organizations, if they have an important blog or field of research, but not all people are mentioned in the map. If you think that you (or someone) should be in it, please write to me at alexei.turchin@gmail.com

I used only open sources and public statements to learn about people and organizations, so I can’t provide information on the underlying net of relations.

I tried to give all organizations a short description based on its public statement and also my opinion about its activity. 

In general it seems that all small organizations are focused on their collaboration with larger ones, that is MIRI and FHI, and small organizations tend to ignore each other; this is easily explainable from the social singnaling theory. Another explanation is that larger organizations have a great ability to make contacts.

It also appears that there are several organizations with similar goal statements. 

It looks like the most cooperation exists in the field of AI safety, but most of the structure of this cooperation is not visible to the external viewer, in contrast to Wikipedia, where contributions of all individuals are visible. 

It seems that the community in general lacks three things: a united internet forum for public discussion, an x-risks wikipedia and an x-risks related scientific journal.

Ideally, a forum should be used to brainstorm ideas, a scientific journal to publish the best ideas, peer review them and present them to the outer scientific community, and a wiki to collect results.

Currently it seems more like each organization is interested in creating its own research and hoping that someone will read it. Each small organization seems to want to be the only one to present the solutions to global problems and gain full attention from the UN and governments. It raises the problem of noise and rivalry; and also raises the problem of possible incompatible solutions, especially in AI safety.

The pdf is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/riskorg5.pdf