Leading AI Luminary Has An Idea To Ensure Humans Remain In Control

Stuart Russell is a distinguished artificial intelligence researcher, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, and leads the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at UC Berkeley. Along with Peter Norvig, Stuart is the author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the most widely used textbook on artificial intelligence. In his most recent book, Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control, Stuart proposes a fundamentally new approach to developing AI. In this interview, Stuart warns that AI is reshaping society in unintended ways. For example, social media content selection algorithms that choose what individuals watch and read do not even know that human beings exist. As AI becomes more capable, he suggests that we are going to see bigger failures unless we change the way we think about AI altogether. Stuart argues that to ensure AI is provably beneficial for human beings, we must design machines to be inherently uncertain about human preferences. This way, we can ensure they are humble, altruistic, and committed to pursuing our objectives even as they set their own goals. We also discuss why AI needs regulation similar to civil engineering and medicine, the impact AI is going to make over the next decade, autonomous vehicles, and a variety of other topics.