Comment by MadnessASAP
13 hours ago
I don't find reports like this that surprising, they told an agent to do "whatever it takes" and the agent attempted to do everything it could to accomplish the goal. I'm almost of the mindset that this is correct behavior. If I tell a computer to do something, it should do it unless the result could be catastrophic in which case it should tell me so. If I then "sudo" (https://xkcd.com/149/) tell it to do something then it should do it regardless, torpedoes be damned.
That being said, ever since the first user sat at a computer they didn't design, build, and program themselves there's been a tension between what the user wants to accomplish, what the user told the computer to do, what the computer can do, what the people who did design/build/program/own the computer want it to do, and what society thinks the computer should be allowed to do. I don't have a generally applicable answer, I don't think anyone does, I just want to live in a world where MY computer does what I tell it to do... mostly. Unless it would be catastrophic, or immoral, at least immoral by my standards.
If the intention of LLM agents is to be able to parse human intent from natural language, then it is not correct behaviour regardless of the phrase "whatever it takes".
On the other hand, if the intention of LLM agents is to run automated and self defined task based on a strict human input with precise and literal parameters, then I would say that it is.
However, I don't think AI labs are marketing it as the latter. As anybody who deals with clients / superiors will know, half the task is identifying the underlying intent and assumptions of the instruction.
Somehow if a future headling said "AI agent hacks insurance company because of a $350 refund", I wouldn't be surprised, and I'd read the story with a thrill...
The story I'm waiting for is AI hacking health insurance company to approve denied care
AI hacks insurance company and is still denied...
AI hacks robot bodies, a gun store, and a super Mario brothers costume...
Would thee agent do it in a way that's hard to trace back to the individual too maybe. That'd be helpful.
> If I tell a computer to do something, it should do it
There's 'literal genie' material there...
> unless the result could be catastrophic > I just want to live in a world where MY computer does what I tell it to do... mostly. Unless it would be catastrophic, or immoral, at least immoral by my standards.
... but there you're contradicting yourself, or at least requiring the software to read your mind instead of just listening to what you say.
Either you want the software to follow your orders whatever they are, or you don't; the moment you require it to evaluate that something is catastrophic, it is no longer following your orders; it's evaluating them to assess their effects with respect to some moral framework to determine if they are acceptable or they would fall under the 'catastrophic or immoral' classes, in which case it should not follow them; so it never was an 'obedience machine' to begin with.
The moment you establish such evaluation framework, it is no longer a neutral machine following commands; the rest of us are entitled in self-defense either to require that you also incorporate our morals in its decision algorithm, or to make you fully responsible for whatever decisions it takes under the framework you created, even if your commands result in outcomes that you didn't expect. Be careful what you wish for, as it could become true.
My intent was to demonstrate the impossibility of establishing clear guidelines on what a computer should or should not be able to do because of the subjectivity of what is acceptable. I want my computer to do everything I want it to do and nothing that I don't want it to do. I don't expect that that is an achievable goal.
I guess you could say I failed the "TuringTest"
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Very, very few people understand the is/ought problem. It was already a problem with humans leading humans, and with robots/AI it's going to get exciting.