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Lethal Autonomy.Should there be a law against it?

Sander Rabin MD JDThe Center for Transhuman Jurisprudence, Inc.The Future of our Minds, Bodies and Genomes

legal #heet

at

Bots and Brains NYC15 December 2014

Nuclear Engineer

Ophthalmic Surgeon

Litigator

The Center for Transhuman

Jurisprudence

journey to #heet

Patent Attorney

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Introduction

Binary Thinking | Ethics |Philosophy |Questions

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1. Should there be a law against Lethal Autonomy?

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2. Is it intelligent to grant lethal autonomy to artificial Intelligence?

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3. Will Lethal Autonomy become Anthropomorphically Lethal?

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4. What are we teaching our child?

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An Artificial Intelligence Insight Structure

Seeing through the Hype

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The mind is a set of mental faculties that enables cognition, i.e.

Imagining

Memorizing

Thinking

Intending

What is the Mind?

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Although intuitive, eludes definition; maybe the sum of:

Awareness: Ability to Experience the World

Perception: Transduction, Interpretation

Sentience: Ability to Sense, Feel, or Experience

Self-Awareness: Ability to Experience the Self

What is Consciousness?

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▪︎ The Self is an idea: an integrated system for representing a human

sustained over changing patterns of neurosynaptic connections and activity

What is the Self?

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Qualia & NCC: How are phenomena experienced?Mental states are experienced subjectively in different ways

by different people, e.g., seeing red or feeling pain

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The Explanatory GapExperience arises from a physical basis, but there is no explanation

of why and how the physical becomes mental

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The hard problem of consciousness

How and why do we have qualia?

Is consciousness Turing computable?

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

How does a lump of fatty tissue and some electricity give rise to the experience of perceiving, meaning, or thinking?

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Knowledge is UnderstandingKnow-how that informs Do-how

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Understanding is Explanation is Data Compression, Rules & Modeling

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Explanation is Description that fits the New into the Prevailing

Paradigm

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▪︎ Turing Test and The Chinese Room?

Problem: Information = Representation + Interpretation(i.e., meaning)

Turing Test Intelligence: Symbolic knowledge (representation) plus logical manipulation

Turing Test: Machine intelligent if responses to questions indistinguishable from human – a successful masquerade

Chinese Room: thought experiment against conclusion that computer passing Turing Test is intelligent

How does Information acquire Meaning?

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▪︎ No consensus on definition

▪︎ Intelligence needed to:

▫︎ communicate in natural language

▫︎ memorize ▫︎ learn ▫︎ plan ▫︎ solve ▫︎ judge adapt

▫︎ perceive to acquire knowledge ▫︎ think to create & represent knowledge ▫︎ reason to use knowledge

may be defined as ‘efficient cross domain optimization’

What is Intelligence?

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AI AGI WBE

WBE: mind uploading approach to AGI - scan & map bio brain & copy data to computer that runs indistinguishable simulation model

AGI: system that performs any intellectual task that a human being can perform

AI: system that senses environment & takes action maximizing chances of it’s success

Artificial Intelligence

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Emergent ▫︎ Reductive ▫︎ Contextual Contingent?

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What is Artificial Emotion?Simulation of motor-driven behavior (laughing, crying) is programmable.

But can AI have feelings without basis in organic neural sensation – the evolutionary origin of emotion?

Is Artificial Emotion Supportive or Subversive?

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What is Conscience?Moral compass faculty: Distinguishes personal right from wrong,

with either remorse or satisfaction following action

MIND

CONSCIOUSNESS | COMPUTABILITY | LAW OF PHYSICS

SELF & SELF AWARENESS

FROM SENSORS TO SENSATION | QUALIA & SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE

WAY OUT OF THE CHINESE ROOM: NONBIOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTION OF MEANING

EMOTIONAL INPUT INTO DECISION-MAKING & JUDGMENT

WHOSE CONSCIENCE?

MUST THE HARD PROBLEM BE SOLVED?

Threat AssessmentAuthentic Non-biological Intelligence

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Deployment of Lethal Autonomy

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Opponents point to:

▪︎ unconscionably changing quintessential meaning of war

▪︎ amplifying extremist power & political destabilization ▪︎ increasing propensity to wage war

anti-Americanism ▫︎ losing battle for peoples' hearts and minds

What are Cons of LAWs?

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Like UAVs, LAWs are effective weapons that comply with IHL with no risk to US soldiers

Are Proportional ▫︎ Do not inherently cause unnecessary suffering

Are Non-Indiscriminate in Targeting ▫︎ Distinguish Civilians from Combatants

Satisfy Military Necessity: ▫︎ kill leaders ▫︎ disrupt terrorist networks ▫︎ instill sense of insecurity

What are Pros of LAWs?

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International Humanitarian Law seeks to limit war (Rules of War) :

LAWs not inherently unlawful under IHL

by restricting combatants’ means & methods of warfare:▫︎ Discrimination ▫︎ No Needless Suffering ▫︎ Proportionality

by protecting persons who are not combatants: ▫︎ Distinction

Is Lethal Autonomy Legal?

Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture

People outsource wide range of moral questions to friends, peers, experts, writers, and public figures. Can a machine do any worse?.

Goal is to create ethical-decision programs for LAWs that perform better ethically than human soldiers in combat.

LAWs can be used in self-sacrificing manner

LAWs can be designed without fear, hysteria, rage, frustration, shell-shock, etc. that clouds human judgment; may perform better than humans in fog of war

LAWs can avoid human problem of ‘scenario fulfillment’ - distortion or neglect of information that does not fit pre-existing beliefs

LAWs can program ethical decisions that govern LAWs consistently with Laws of War & Rules of Engagement

LAWs may be capable of independent, objective monitoring of combat behavior by all parties and reporting ethical infraction

Machine Morality v. Human Morality

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Arguments over legitimacy of weapons ancient. Arms race makes LAWs inevitable and ban unworkable

Ban won’t stop back market sales

Also assigning potentially lethal tasks to nonmilitary machines, e.g., driverless cars

People accepting lethal autonomy in nonmilitary machines will expect same tech in war.

Best way to adapt IHL to LAWs is global dialogue for common standards and best practices.

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Human Morality as Measure: Unworkable Bans and Unenforceable Treaties

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Superintelligent Self-Replication

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▪︎ Intellect smarter than best human brains

If bio brain is physical system, simplest superAI may be WBE operating faster than bio brain

GE, SynBio, Neurotech may create bio superAI

Bio constrains processing speed & size of human brain

Bostrum: SuperAI simply dominant at goal-oriented behavior. Avoids questions of intentionality (Chinese Room) or consciousness (Hard Problem)

What is Superintelligence?

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“What is the answer?” “That depends on why you’re asking the question.”

3. Will Lethal Autonomy become Anthropomorphically Lethal?DOUBTFUL

2. Is it intelligent to grant lethal autonomy to artificial Intelligence?PROBABLY NOT BUT LIKELY NECESSARY

1. Should there be a law against Lethal Autonomy? NO

4. What are we teaching our child?COHERENT EXTRAPOLATED VOLITION

ANSWERS

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Merge with the Child?

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Do what we would have told you to do if we thought as fast as you do and could consider many more possible lines of moral argument

Do what we would have told you to do if we knew everything you know

Program the AI to:

Do what we would tell you to do if we had your ability to reflect on and modify ourselves

Initially design AI to learn human values by looking at humans, asking questions, scanning human brains, rather programming with fixed set of imperatives

Lesson Plan

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A First Word Summit on Human Enhancement Enabling Technology

economic #heet

Coming in 2015

http://www.tranhumanjuris.com @transhuman juris

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Future’s Greetings