87 - AI and the Value Alignment Problem

Philosophical Disquisitions

How do we make sure that an AI does the right thing? How could we do this when we ourselves don't even agree on what the right thing might be? In this episode, I talk to Iason Gabriel about these questions. Iason is a political theorist and ethicist currently working as a Research Scientist at DeepMind. His research focuses on the moral questions raised by artificial intelligence. His recent work addresses the challenge of value alignment, responsible innovation, and human rights. He has also been a prominent contributor to the debate about the ethics of effective altruism.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here).

Show Notes:

Topics discussed include:

• What is the value alignment problem?

• Why is it so important that we get value alignment right?

• Different ways of conceiving the problem

• How different AI architectures affect the problem

• Why there can be no purely technical solution to the value alignment problem

• Six potential solutions to the value alignment problem

• Why we need to deal with value pluralism and uncertainty

• How political theory can help to resolve the problem

Relevant Links

• Iason on Twitter

• "Artificial Intelligence, Values and Alignment" by Iason

• "Effective Altruism and its Critics" by Iason

• My blog series on the above article

• "Social Choice Ethics in Artificial Intelligence" by Seth Baum

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