Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

by Nick Bostrom

But then again, artificial agents might lack many of the attributes that help us predict the behavior of human-like agents. Artificial agents need not have any of the social emotions that bind human behavior, emotions such as fear, pride, and remorse. Nor need artificial agents develop attachments to friends and family. Nor need they exhibit the unconscious body language that makes it difficult for us humans to conceal our intentions. These deficits might destabilize institutions of artificial agents. Moreover, artificial agents might be capable of making big leaps in cognitive performance as a result of seemingly small changes in their algorithms or architecture. Ruthlessly optimizing artificial agents might be willing to take extreme gambles from which humans would shrink.38 And superintelligent agents might show a surprising ability to coordinate with little or no communication (e.g. by internally modeling each other’s hypothetical responses to various contingencies). These and other differences could make sudden institutional failure more likely, even in the teeth of what seem like Kevlar-clad methods of social control.