Google DeepMind on Wednesday published an exhaustive paper on its safety approach to AGI, roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can.
AGI is a bit of a controversial subject in the AI field, with naysayers suggesting that it’s little more than a pipe dream. Others, including major AI labs like Anthropic, warn that it’s around the corner, and could result in catastrophic harms if steps aren’t taken to implement appropriate safeguards.
DeepMind’s 145-page document, which was co-authored by DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg, predicts that AGI could arrive by 2030, and that it may result in what the authors call “severe harm.” The paper doesn’t concretely define this, but gives the alarmist example of “existential risks” that “permanently destroy humanity.”
“[We anticipate] the development of an Exceptional AGI before the end of the current decade,” the authors wrote. “An Exceptional AGI is a system that has a capability matching at least 99th percentile of skilled adults on a wide range of non-physical tasks, including metacognitive tasks like learning new skills.”
Off the bat, the paper contrasts DeepMind’s treatment of AGI risk mitigation with Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s. Anthropic, it says, places less emphasis on “robust training, monitoring, and security,” while OpenAI is overly bullish on “automating” a form of AI safety research known as alignment research.
The paper also casts doubt on the viability of superintelligent AI — AI that can perform jobs better than any human. (OpenAI recently claimed that it’s turning its aim from AGI to superintelligence.) Absent “significant architectural innovation,” the DeepMind authors aren’t convinced that superintelligent systems will emerge soon — if ever.
The paper does find it plausible, though, that current paradigms will enable “recursive AI improvement”: a positive feedback loop where AI conducts its own AI research to create more sophisticated AI systems. And this could be incredibly dangerous, assert the authors.
At a high level, the paper proposes and advocates for the development of techniques to block bad actors’ access to hypothetical AGI, improve the understandi …