AI Teaches Itself Laws of Physics

As artificial intelligence algorithms and systems become more sophisticated and take on bigger responsibilities, it becomes more and more important to ensure that AI systems avoid dangerous, unwanted behavior. Recently a team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Stanford published a paper that demonstrates how specific AI behavior can be avoided, through the use of a technique that elicits precise mathematical instructions that can be used to tweak the behavior of an AI. According to TechXplore, the research was predicated on the assumption that unfair/unsafe behaviors can be defined with mathematical functions and variables. If this is true then it should be possible for researchers to train systems to avoid these specific behaviors. The research team aimed to develop a toolkit that could be employed by users of the AI to specify which behaviors they want the AI to avoid, and enable AI engineers to reliably train a system that will avoid unwanted actions when used in real-world scenarios.