AI Seminar Series 2022: Kim Solez

The AI Seminar is a weekly meeting at the University of Alberta where researchers interested in artificial intelligence (AI) can share their research. Presenters include both local speakers from the University of Alberta and visitors from other institutions. Topics can be related in any way to artificial intelligence, from foundational theoretical work to innovative applications of AI techniques to new fields and problems.

On Aug 5, Kim Solez – Professor of Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta – presented "How AI can improve human cooperation through suggesting followup action in modelled newscasts" at the AI Seminar.

Recently there has been concern expressed about the safety of machine learning/artificial intelligence in the long run by Eliezer Yudkowsky's AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities, widely quoted elsewhere. The first of the 40+ bolded sections of the piece is the most significant because of the way it is equally true of an AI utopia: “AGI will not be upper-bounded by human ability or human learning speed. Things much smarter than humans would be able to learn from less evidence than humans require.” Reading the beginning of that paragraph it is true that AI has taught humans much more beautiful moves in the game of Go than we would ever have been able to design ourselves. That means that AI can teach us ways of cooperating with each other that are superior to human’s own innate ability to cooperate successfully. Therefore, increasing use of machine learning is not the beginning of the slippery slope toward humanity’s demise, it could be exactly the opposite, a transition toward a world better than anything we ever imagined. We can determine which of these two contrasting futures happens, and AI can assist with that! An AI may also be more foresighted and have a longer temporal horizon, both of which promote cooperation.

Watch the full presentation below:

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