The creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise, but with it also comes existential risk. How can we know AI will be safe? How can we know it will not destroy us? How can we know that its values will be aligned with ours? Because of this risk an entire field has sprung up surrounding AI Safety and Security. But this is an unsolvable problem, AI can never be fully controlled, writes Roman V. Yampolskiy.
The invention of Artificial Intelligence will shift the trajectory of human civilization. But to reap the benefits of such powerful technology – and to avoid the dangers – we must be able to control it. Currently we have no idea whether such control is even possible. My view is that Artificial Intelligence (AI) - and its more advanced version, Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) – could never be fully controlled.
Solving an unsolvable problem
The unprecedented progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI), over the last decade has not been smooth. Multiple AI failures [1, 2] and cases of dual use (when AI is used for purposes beyond its maker’s intentions) [3] have shown that it is not sufficient to create highly capable machines, but that those machines must also be beneficial [4] for humanity. This concern birthed a new sub-field of research, ‘AI Safety and Security’ [5] with hundreds of papers published annually. But all of this research assumes that controlling highly capable intelligent machines is possible, an assumption which has not been established by any rigorous means.
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