AI Open Letter – Future of Life Institute

Artificial intelligence (AI) research has explored a variety of problems and approaches since its inception, but for the last 20 years or so has been focused on the problems surrounding the construction of intelligent agents systems that perceive and act in some environment. In this context, intelligence is related to statistical and economic notions of rationality colloquially, the ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences. The adoption of probabilistic and decision-theoretic representations and statistical learning methods has led to a large degree of integration and cross-fertilization among AI, machine learning, statistics, control theory, neuroscience, and other fields. The establishment of shared theoretical frameworks, combined with the availability of data and processing power, has yielded remarkable successes in various component tasks such as speech recognition, image classification, autonomous vehicles, machine translation, legged locomotion, and question-answering systems.

As capabilities in these areas and others cross the threshold from laboratory research to economically valuable technologies, a virtuous cycle takes hold whereby even small improvements in performance are worth large sums of money, prompting greater investments in research. There is now a broad consensus that AI research is progressing steadily, and that its impact on society is likely to increase. The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.

The progress in AI research makes it timely to focus research not only on making AI more capable, but also on maximizing the societal benefit of AI. Such considerations motivated the AAAI 2008-09 Presidential Panel on Long-Term AI Futures and other projects on AI impacts, and constitute a significant expansion of the field of AI itself, which up to now has focused largely on techniques that are neutral with respect to purpose. We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do. The attached research priorities document gives many examples of such research directions that can help maximize the societal benefit of AI. This research is by necessity interdisciplinary, because it involves both society and AI. It ranges from economics, law and philosophy to computer security, formal methods and, of course, various branches of AI itself.

In summary, we believe that research on how to make AI systems robust and beneficial is both important and timely, and that there are concrete research directions that can be pursued today.

If you have questions about this letter, please contact Max Tegmark.

To date, the open letter has been signed by over 8,000 people. The list of signatories includes:

Stuart Russell, Berkeley, Professor of Computer Science, director of the Center for Intelligent Systems, and co-author of the standard textbook Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach. Tom Dietterich, Oregon State, President of AAAI, Professor and Director of Intelligent Systems Eric Horvitz, Microsoft research director, ex AAAI president, co-chair of the AAAI presidential panel on long-term AI futures Bart Selman, Cornell, Professor of Computer Science, co-chair of the AAAI presidential panel on long-term AI futures Francesca Rossi, Padova & Harvard, Professor of Computer Science, IJCAI President and Co-chair of AAAI committee on impact of AI and Ethical Issues Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind Shane Legg, co-founder of DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind Dileep George, co-founder of Vicarious Scott Phoenix, co-founder of Vicarious Yann LeCun, head of Facebooks Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Geoffrey Hinton, University of Toronto and Google Inc. Yoshua Bengio, Universit de Montral Peter Norvig, Director of research at Google and co-author of the standard textbook Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach Oren Etzioni, CEO of Allen Inst. for AI Guruduth Banavar, VP, Cognitive Computing, IBM Research Michael Wooldridge, Oxford, Head of Dept. of Computer Science, Chair of European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence Leslie Pack Kaelbling, MIT, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, founder of the Journal of Machine Learning Research Tom Mitchell, CMU, former President of AAAI, chair of Machine Learning Department Toby Walsh, Univ. of New South Wales & NICTA, Professor of AI and President of the AI Access Foundation Murray Shanahan, Imperial College, Professor of Cognitive Robotics Michael Osborne, Oxford, Associate Professor of Machine Learning David Parkes, Harvard, Professor of Computer Science Laurent Orseau, Google DeepMind Ilya Sutskever, Google, AI researcher Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google, AI researcher Joscha Bach, MIT, AI researcher Bill Hibbard, Madison, AI researcher Steve Omohundro, AI researcher Ben Goertzel, OpenCog Foundation Richard Mallah, Cambridge Semantics, Director of Advanced Analytics, AI researcher Alexander Wissner-Gross, Harvard, Fellow at the Institute for Applied Computational Science Adrian Weller, Cambridge, AI researcher Jacob Steinhardt, Stanford, AI Ph.D. student Nick Hay, Berkeley, AI Ph.D. student Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype, CSER and FLI Elon Musk, SpaceX, Tesla Motors Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Luke Nosek, Founders Fund Aaron VanDevender, Founders FundErik Brynjolfsson, MIT, Professor at and director of MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Margaret Boden, U. Sussex, Professor of Cognitive Science Martin Rees, Cambridge, Professor Emeritus of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Gruber & Crafoord laureate Huw Price, Cambridge, Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy Nick Bostrom, Oxford, Professor of Philosophy, Director of Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford Martin School) Stephen Hawking, Director of research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, 2012 Fundamental Physics Prize laureate for his work on quantum gravity Luke Muehlhauser, Executive Director of Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) Eliezer Yudkowsky, MIRI researcher, co-founder of MIRI (then known as SIAI) Katja Grace, MIRI researcher Benja Fallenstein, MIRI researcher Nate Soares, MIRI researcher Paul Christiano, Berkeley, Computer Science graduate student Anders Sandberg, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute researcher (Oxford Martin School) Daniel Dewey, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute researcher (Oxford Martin School) Stuart Armstrong, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute researcher (Oxford Martin School) Toby Ord, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute researcher (Oxford Martin School), Founder of Giving What We Can Neil Jacobstein, Singularity University Dominik Grewe, Google DeepMind Roman V. Yampolskiy, University of Louisville Vincent C. Mller, ACT/Anatolia College Amnon H Eden, University Essex Henry Kautz, University of Rochester Boris Debic, Google, Chief History Officer Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia, Professor of Computer Science Trevor Back, Google DeepMind Moshe Vardi, Rice University, editor-in-chief of Communications of the ACM Peter Sincak, prof. TU Kosice, Slovakia Tom Schaul, Google DeepMind Grady Booch, IBM Fellow Alan Mackworth, Professor of Computer Science, University of British Columbia. Ex AAAI President Andrew Davison, Professor of Robot Vision, Director of the Dyson Robotics Lab at Imperial College London Daniel Weld, WRF / TJ Cable Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington Michael Witbrock, Cycorp Inc & AI4Good.org Stephen L. Reed, ai-coin.com Thomas Stone, Co-founder of PredictionIO Dan Roth, University of Illinois, Editor in Chief of The Journal of AI Research (JAIR) Babak Hodjat, Sentient Technologies Vincent Vanhoucke, Google, AI researcher Itamar Arel, Stanford University, Prof. of Computer Science Ramon Lopez de Mantaras, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Spanish National Research Council Antoine Blondeau, Sentient Technologies George Dvorsky, Contributing Editor, io9; Chair of the Board, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies George Church, Harvard & MIT Klaus-Dieter Althoff, University of Hildesheim, Professor of Artificial Intelligence; Head of Competence Center Case-Based Reasoning, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Kaiserslautern; Editor-in-Chief German Journal on Artificial Intelligence Christopher Bishop, Distinguished Scientist, Microsoft Research Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO John Schulman, UC Berkeley & OpenAI Koichi Takahashi, PI at RIKEN, Co-chair of Whole Brain Architecture Initiative, CIO of Robotic Biology Institute JT Turner, Knexus Research Corp Vernor Vinge, San Diego, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science Steve Crossan, Google Charina Choi, Google Matthew Putman, CEO of Nanotronics Imaging Owain Evans, MIT, Ph.D. student in probabilistic computing Viktoriya Krakovna, Harvard, Statistics Ph.D. student, FLI co-founder Janos Kramar, FLI researcher Ryan Calo, U. Washington, Assistant Professor of Law Heather Roff Perkins, U. Denver, visiting professor Tomaso Poggio, Director, Center for Brains, Minds and Machines Joshua Greene, Harvard, Associate Professor of Psychology Anthony Aguirre, Santa Cruz, Professor of Physics, co-founder of FLI Frank Wilczek, MIT, Professor of Physics, Nobel Laureate for his work on the strong nuclear force Marin Soljacic, MIT, Professor of Physics, McArthur Fellow, Founder of WiTricity Max Tegmark, MIT, Professor of Physics, co-founder of FLI and FQXi Meia Chita-Tegmark, Boston University, co-founder of FLI Michael Vassar, founder of MetaMed and ex-president of MIRI (then known as SIAI) Sen Higeartaigh, University of Cambridge, Executive Director, CSER Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute Project Manager (Oxford Martin School) Cecilia Tilli, Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute researcher (Oxford Martin School) Geoff Anders, founder of Leverage Research JB Straubel, co-founder of Tesla Sam Harris, Project Reason Ajay Agrawal, U. Toronto James Manyika, McKinsey James Moor, Dartmouth Wendell Wallach, Yale Sean Legassick, MobGeo Shamil Chandaria, London U, Institute of Philosophy Michele Reilly, Turing Inc. Michael Andregg, Fathom Computing Ulrich Junker, IBM Miroslaw Truszczynski, University of Kentucky Christian Steinruecken, University of Cambridge, graduate student in AI Mark Waser, Digital Wisdom Institute Douglas Clark, CEO, Mtier Steven Schmatz, University of Michigan Corey Henderson, Computer Security Researcher Jeffrey D. Rupp Amit Kumar, VP & GM, Yahoo Small Business Jesus Cepeda, PhD in Robotics and AI, Monterrey, Mexico Rodolfo Rosini, CEO, Storybricks CD Athuraliya, Machine learning student, USJP, WSO2 Kathryn McElroy, UX Designer for IBM Watson Massimo Di Pierro, DePaul University Anirban Bhattacharya, Computer Science Researcher Lan Laucirica, SpaceX Jesse Brown, UC San Francisco, Neuroscience postdoctoral scholar Barun K Saha, PhD student at IIT Kharagpur Jonathan Yates, IBM Watson Group EMEA Sam Richard, UI Architect, IBM Watson James Miller, Smith College, Author Singularity Rising Joel Pitt, Independent Researcher (ex-OpenCog) Achu Wilson, C.T.O Sastra Robotics Ji Tulach, CTO, Position s.r.o. Alexandru Litoiu, Yale University Mark Watson, Author and consultant specializing in artificial intelligence Michael Kuhlmann, Colony Networks George Kachergis, Postdoctoral researcher at New York University Brian Driscoll, Sr. Systems Engineer, Osprey Software Development Louis Choquel, Entrepreneur, Software Engineer Roberto Paura, Italian Institute for the Future Soheil Yasrebi, Loverino Inc. David Duvenaud, Harvard University James Babcock, Praxamed Peter Marshall, memememobile.com, CEO Marc Bejarano Igor Trajkovski, Time.mk Appu Shaji, Head, R&D, EyeEm Tim Daly, CMU LTI Senior Research Programmer Stefan Schubert, LSE Philosophy Colin Lewis, RobotEnomics Jared Peters, co-founder of Origamir Robotics Darryl McAdams, Language Engine Mike Slinn, Micronautics Research Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, University of Chicago, MIRI associate Nathaniel Thomas, Stanford University, PhD student in quantum computing Kyle Lussier, Founder / CEO of Tickle.me and Countervaillance Marek Rosa, CEO at Keen Software House Diana Hu, Data Scientist, OnCue TV Alejandro Machado, Carnegie Mellon University, graduate student Max Kesin, Palantir, ML developer Alexandros Marinos, CEO, Resin.io Patrick LaVictoire, MIRI research associate Michael Warner, AI researcher John Hering, Lookout Ronnie Vuine, Micropsi industries Chris Nicholson, Skymind Rene Verheij, AI programmer Rudy Krol, Amazon Web Services Simon Hughes, PhD Candidate Machine Learning, DePaul Aneesh Subramanian, University of Oxford Jon Baer, AI researcher James McDermott, University College Dublin Zavain Dar, VC and Lecturer Derek Brown, LinkedIn, Addepar Gabriel Synnaeve, Ecole Normale Suprieure / EHESS Denny Vrandecic, Google, Founder of Wikidata Robert W. Williams, Univ Tenn & Human Brain Project Peteris Erins, Consultant at McKinsey & Company Anubhav Ashok, University of Texas at Austin, Student and Apple Intern 2014 Naomi Moneypenny, AI Researcher & Chief Technology Officer, ManyWorlds, Inc David Cieslak, Aunalytics Stephan Zuchner, U of Miami, Professor and Chair for Human Genetics; Co-founder The Genesis Project and ViaGenetics Inc Evan Goldschmidt, Google Anna Salamon, Center for Applied Rationality Mark Koltko-Rivera, The Ontos Companies John Hammersley, co-founder of Overleaf / WriteLaTeX Malcolm Greaves, CMU Rob Bensinger, MIRI researcher Marcello Herreshoff, MIRI research associate, GooglePaul Pallaghy, Neo AI Systems P/L, Melbourne, Australia Percy Liang, Stanford, AI researcher Theresa Carbonneau, STG Gert de Cooman, Ghent University Nicholas Kong, Google Jeff Nelson, Founder, Chromebook project @ Google Christian Kaiser, Order of Magnitude Labs Gabriel Garrett, Artificial Consciousness Engineer Miles Brundage, Arizona State University Matthew Luciw, Boston University, Neurala, AI researcher Vijay Saraswat, IBM TJ Watson Research Center Ben Hamner, Chief Science Officer, Kaggle William Eden, Vice President, Thiel Capital Dan Von Kohorn, v2 Ratings Nicholas Haan, Singularity University Kristian Rnn, CEO and co-founder of Meta Mind AB, previously Projects Officer at the Future of Humanity Institute

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AI Open Letter - Future of Life Institute