Download AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-Term AI Futures

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AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-Term
AI Futures
2008-2009 Study
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Co-chairs: Eric Horvitz and Bart Selman
Panel: Margaret Boden, Craig Boutilier, Greg Cooper, Tom Dean, Tom Dietterich, Oren
Etzioni, Barbara Grosz, Eric Horvitz, Toru Ishida, Sarit Kraus, Alan Mackworth, David
McAllester, Sheila McIlraith, Tom Mitchell, Andrew Ng, David Parkes, Edwina
Rissland, Bart Selman, Diana Spears, Peter Stone, Milind Tambe, Sebastian Thrun,
Manuela Veloso, David Waltz, Michael Wellman
Terms of Reference
The AAAI President has commissioned a study to explore and address potential longterm societal influences of AI research and development. The panel will consider the
nature and timing of potential AI successes, and will define and address societal
challenges and opportunities in light of these potential successes. On reflecting about the
long term, panelists will review expectations and uncertainties about the development of
increasingly competent machine intelligences, including the prospect that computational
systems will achieve “human-level” abilities along a variety of dimensions, or surpass
human intelligence in a variety of ways. The panel will appraise societal and technical
issues that would likely come to the fore with the rise of competent machine intelligence.
For example, how might AI successes in multiple realms and venues lead to significant or
perhaps even disruptive societal changes?
The committee's deliberation will include a review and response to concerns about the
potential for loss of human control of computer-based intelligences and, more generally,
the possibility for foundational changes in the world stemming from developments in AI.
Beyond concerns about control, the committee will reflect about potential socioeconomic,
legal, and ethical issues that may come with the rise of competent intelligent
computation, the changes in perceptions about machine intelligence, and likely changes
in human-computer relationships.
In addition to projecting forward and making predictions about outcomes, the panel will
deliberate about actions that might be taken proactively over time in the realms of
preparatory analysis, practices, or machinery so as to enhance long-term societal
outcomes.
On issues of control and, more generally, on the evolving human-computer relationship,
writings, such as those by statistician I.J. Good on the prospects of an "intelligence
explosion" followed up by mathematician/science fiction author Vernor Vinge's writings
on the inevitable march towards an AI “singularity,” propose that major changes might
flow from the unstoppable rise of powerful computational intelligences. Popular movies
have portrayed computer-based intelligence to the public with attention-catching plots
centering on the loss of control of intelligent machines. Well-known science fiction
stories have included reflections (e.g., the “Laws of Robotics” described in Asimov's
Robot Series) on the need for and value of establishing behavioral rules for autonomous
systems. Discussion, media, and anxieties about AI in the public and scientific realms
highlight the value of investing more thought as a scientific community on preceptions,
expectations, and concerns about long-term futures for AI. The committee will study and
discuss these issues and will address in their report the myths and potential realities of
anxieties about long-term futures. Beyond reflection about the validity of such concerns
by scientists and lay public about disruptive futures, the panel will reflect about the value
of formulating guidelines for guiding research and of creating policies that might
constrain or bias the behaviors of autonomous and semi-autonomous systems so as to
address concerns.
Focus groups:

Pace, Concerns, Control, Guidelines
Chair: David McAllester

Potentially Disruptive Advances: Nature and timing
Chair: Milind Tambe

Ethical and Legal Challenges
Chair: David Waltz
Asilomar meeting, February 2009
Attendees at Asilomar, Pacific Grove, February 21-22, 2009 (left to right): Michael
Wellman, Eric Horvitz, David Parkes, Milind Tambe, David Waltz, Thomas Dietterich,
Edwina Rissland (front), Sebastian Thrun, David McAllester, Magaret Boden, Sheila
McIlraith, Tom Dean, Greg Cooper, Bart Selman, Manuela Veloso, Craig Boutilier,
Diana Spears (front), Tom Mitchell, Andrew Ng.
Feedback on study: aifutures @ aaai.org
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