Davidad Dalrymple: Towards Provably Safe AI

Davidad Dalrymple: Towards Provably Safe AI

Author: Daniel Bashir September 5, 2024 Duration: 1:20:50
The Gradient: Perspectives on AI
TechnologyScience

Episode 137

I spoke with Davidad Dalrymple about:

* His perspectives on AI risk

* ARIA (the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency) and its Safeguarded AI Programme

Enjoy—and let me know what you think!

Davidad is a Programme Director at ARIA. He was most recently a Research Fellow in technical AI safety at Oxford. He co-invented the top-40 cryptocurrency Filecoin, led an international neuroscience collaboration, and was a senior software engineer at Twitter and multiple startups.

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Outline:

* (00:00) Intro

* (00:36) Calibration and optimism about breakthroughs

* (03:35) Calibration and AGI timelines, effects of AGI on humanity

* (07:10) Davidad’s thoughts on the Orthogonality Thesis

* (10:30) Understanding how our current direction relates to AGI and breakthroughs

* (13:33) What Davidad thinks is needed for AGI

* (17:00) Extracting knowledge

* (19:01) Cyber-physical systems and modeling frameworks

* (20:00) Continuities between Davidad’s earlier work and ARIA

* (22:56) Path dependence in technology, race dynamics

* (26:40) More on Davidad’s perspective on what might go wrong with AGI

* (28:57) Vulnerable world, interconnectedness of computers and control

* (34:52) Formal verification and world modeling, Open Agency Architecture

* (35:25) The Semantic Sufficiency Hypothesis

* (39:31) Challenges for modeling

* (43:44) The Deontic Sufficiency Hypothesis and mathematical formalization

* (49:25) Oversimplification and quantitative knowledge

* (53:42) Collective deliberation in expressing values for AI

* (55:56) ARIA’s Safeguarded AI Programme

* (59:40) Anthropic’s ASL levels

* (1:03:12) Guaranteed Safe AI —

* (1:03:38) AI risk and (in)accurate world models

* (1:09:59) Levels of safety specifications for world models and verifiers — steps to achieve high safety

* (1:12:00) Davidad’s portfolio research approach and funding at ARIA

* (1:15:46) Earlier concerns about ARIA — Davidad’s perspective

* (1:19:26) Where to find more information on ARIA and the Safeguarded AI Programme

* (1:20:44) Outro

Links:

* Davidad’s Twitter

* ARIA homepage

* Safeguarded AI Programme

* Papers

* Guaranteed Safe AI

* Davidad’s Open Agency Architecture for Safe Transformative AI

* Dioptics: a Common Generalization of Open Games and Gradient-Based Learners (2019)

* Asynchronous Logic Automata (2008)



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Hosted by Daniel Bashir, The Gradient: Perspectives on AI moves beyond surface-level headlines to explore the intricate machinery and human ideas shaping artificial intelligence. Each episode is built on a foundation of deep research, leading to conversations that are both technically substantive and broadly accessible. You'll hear from researchers, engineers, and philosophers who are actively building and critiquing our technological future, discussing not just how AI systems work, but the larger implications of their integration into society. This isn't about speculative hype; it's a grounded examination of real progress, persistent challenges, and ethical considerations from those on the front lines. The discussions peel back layers on topics like model architecture, policy, and the fundamental science behind the algorithms becoming part of our daily lives. For anyone curious about the substance behind the buzz-whether you have a technical background or are simply keen to understand a defining technology of our age-this podcast offers a crucial and thoughtful resource. Tune in for a consistently detailed and nuanced take that treats artificial intelligence with the complexity it deserves.
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