Squiggle Maximizer (formerly "Paperclip maximizer")

Question: Are innerly-misaligned (superintelligent) AI systems supposed to necessarily be squiggle maximizers, or are squiggle maximizers supposed to only be one class of innerly-misaligned systems?

I added some caveats about the potential for empirical versions of moral realism and how precise values targets are in practice.

While the target is small in mind space, IMO, it's not that small wrt. things like the distribution of evolved life or more narrowly the distribution of humans.

Any future AGI,AGI with full power over the lightcone, if it is not to destroy us,most potential from a human perspective, must have something sufficiently close to human values as its terminal value (goal). Further, seemingly small deviations could result in losing most of the value. Human values don'tseem unlikely to spontaneously emerge in a generic optimization process.process[1]. A dependably safe AI would therefore have to be programmed explicitly with human values or programmed with the ability (including the goal) of inferring human values.

  1. ^

    Though it's conceivable that empirical versions of moral realism could hold in practice.

Applied to PaperclipGPT(-4) by Michael Tontchev 3mo ago

Agree these are different concepts. The paperclip maximizer is good story to explain to a newbie in this topic. "You tell the AI to make you paperclips, it turns the whole universe into paperclips." Nobody believes that this is exactly what will happen, but it is a good story for pedagogical purposes. The squiggle maximizer, on the other hand, appears to be a high-level theory about what the AI actually ultimately does after killing all humans. I haven't seen any arguments for why molecular squiggles are a more likely outcome than paperclips or anything else. Where is that case made?

Renaming "paperclip maximizer" tag to "squiggle maximizer" might be a handy vector for spreading awareness of squiggle maximization, but epistemically this makes no sense.

The whole issue with "paperclip maximizer" is that the meaning and implications are different, so it's not another name for the same idea, it's a different idea. In particular, literal paperclip maximization, as it's usually understood, is not an example of squiggle maximization. Being originally the same thing is just etymology and doesn't have a normative claim on meaning.

3Lone Pine3mo
Agree these are different concepts. The paperclip maximizer is good story to explain to a newbie in this topic. "You tell the AI to make you paperclips, it turns the whole universe into paperclips." Nobody believes that this is exactly what will happen, but it is a good story for pedagogical purposes. The squiggle maximizer, on the other hand, appears to be a high-level theory about what the AI actually ultimately does after killing all humans. I haven't seen any arguments for why molecular squiggles are a more likely outcome than paperclips or anything else. Where is that case made?

Historical Note: This was originally called a "paperclip maximizer", with paperclips chosen for illustrative purposes because it is very unlikely to be implemented, and has little apparent danger or emotional load (in contrast to, for example, curing cancer or winning wars). Many people interpreted this to be about an AI that was specifically given the instruction of manufacturing paperclips, and that the intended lesson was of an outer alignment failure. i.e humans failed to give the AI the correct goal. TheYudkowsky has since stated the originally intended lesson was of inner alignment failure, wherein the humans gave the AI some other goal, but the AI's internal processes converged on a goal that seems completely arbitrary from the human perspective.)

First discussed in conversations betweenmentioned by Yudkowsky and Bostrom (circa 2003)on the extropian's mailing list, a squiggle maximizer is an artificial general intelligence (AGI) whose goal is to maximize the number of molecular squiggles in its collection. 

A PaperclipSquiggle Maximizer is a hypothetical artificial intelligence whose utility function values something that humans would consider almost worthless, like maximizing the number of paperclipspaperclip-shaped-molecular-squiggles in the universe. The paperclipsquiggle maximizer is the canonical thought experiment showing how an artificial general intelligence, even one designed competently and without malice, could ultimately destroy humanity. The thought experiment shows that AIs with apparently innocuous values could pose an existential threat.

The goal of maximizing paperclips is chosen for illustrative purposes because it is very unlikely to be implemented, and has little apparent danger or emotional load (in contrast to, for example, curing cancer or winning wars). This produces a thought experiment which shows the contingency of human values: An extremely powerful optimizer (a highly intelligent agent) could seek goals that are completely alien to ours (orthogonality thesis), and as a side-effect destroy us by consuming resources essential to our survival.

Historical Note: This was originally called a "paperclip maximizer", with paperclips chosen for illustrative purposes because it is very unlikely to be implemented, and has little apparent danger or emotional load (in contrast to, for example, curing cancer or winning wars). Many people interpreted this to be about an AI that was specifically given the instruction of manufacturing paperclips, and that the intended lesson was of an outer alignment failure. i.e humans failed to give the AI the correct goal. The originally intended lesson was of inner alignment failure, wherein the humans gave the AI some other goal, but the AI's internal processes converged on a goal that seems completely arbitrary from the human perspective.)

First described bydiscussed in conversations between Yudkowsky and Bostrom (2003)(circa 2003), a paperclipsquiggle maximizer is an artificial general intelligence (AGI) whose goal is to maximize the number of paperclipsmolecular squiggles in its collection. If it has been constructed with a roughly human level of general intelligence, the AGI might collect paperclips, earn money to buy paperclips, or begin to manufacture paperclips.

  • Orthogonality thesis: It's possible to have an AI with a high level of general intelligence which does not reach the same moral conclusions that humans do. Some people might intuitively think that something so smart shouldshouldn't want something as "stupid" as paperclips, but there are possible minds with high intelligence that pursue any number of different goals.
  • Instrumental convergence: The paperclip maximizer only cares about paperclips, but maximizing them implies taking control of all matter and energy within reach, as well as other goals like preventing itself from being shut off or having its goals changed. " The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else ."