Sarma, Gopal P. and Hay, Nick J. (2017) Mammalian Value Systems. Informatica, 41 (4). pp. 441-449.

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Abstract

Characterizing human values is a topic deeply interwoven with the sciences, humanities, political philosophy, art, and many other human endeavors. In recent years, a number of thinkers have argued that accelerating trends in computer science, cognitive science, and related disciplines foreshadow the creation of intelligent machines which meet and ultimately surpass the cognitive abilities of human beings, thereby entangling an understanding of human values with future technological development. Contemporary research accomplishments suggest increasingly sophisticated AI systems becoming widespread and responsible for managing many aspects of the modern world, from preemptively planning users’ travel schedules and logistics, to fully autonomous vehicles, to domestic robots assisting in daily living. The extrapolation of these trends has been most forcefully described in the context of a hypothetical “intelligence explosion,” in which the capabilities of an intelligent software agent would rapidly increase due to the presence of feedback loops unavailable to biological organisms. The possibility of superintelligent agents, or simply the widespread deployment of sophisticated, autonomous AI systems, highlights an important theoretical problem: the need to separate the cognitive and rational capacities of an agent from the fundamental goal structure, or value system, which constrains and guides the agent’s actions. The “value alignment problem” is to specify a goal structure for autonomous agents compatible with human values. In this brief article, we suggest that recent ideas from affective neuroscience and related disciplines aimed at characterizing neurological and behavioral universals in the mammalian kingdom provide important conceptual foundations relevant to describing human values. We argue that the notion of “mammalian value systems” points to a potential avenue for fundamental research in AI safety and AI ethics.

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Item Type:	Published Article or Volume
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Sarma, Gopal P. gopal.sarma@emory.edu 0000-0002-9413-6202 Hay, Nick J. nickjhay@cs.berkeley.edu
Keywords:	AI safety; affective neuroscience; formal theory of values; orthogonality thesis; comparative neuroanatomy; evolutionary psychology; intelligence explosion; value alignment; value learning;
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Ethical Issues Specific Sciences > Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Technology
Depositing User:	Dr. Gopal Sarma
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2018 15:31
Last Modified:	29 Jan 2018 15:31
Item ID:	14335
Journal or Publication Title:	Informatica
Official URL:	http://www.informatica.si/index.php/informatica/ar...
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Ethical Issues Specific Sciences > Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Technology
Date:	1 December 2017
Page Range:	pp. 441-449
Volume:	41
Number:	4
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14335

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• Mammalian Value Systems. (deposited 28 Jul 2016 13:04)
  • Mammalian Value Systems. (deposited 27 May 2017 15:14)
    • Mammalian Value Systems. (deposited 29 Jan 2018 15:31) [Currently Displayed]

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