I don’t think we currently know what problems within AI governance are most pressing. Once we do, it seems prudent to specialise more.
It makes sense not to specialize early, but I’m still confused about what the category is. For example, the closest thing to a definition in this post (btw, not a criticism if a definition is missing in this post. Perhaps it’s aimed at people with more context than me) seems to be:
AI governance concerns how humanity can best navigate the transition to a world with advanced AI systems
To me, that seems to be synonymous with the AI risk problem in its entirety. A first guess at what might be meant by AI governance is “all the non-technical stuff that we need to sort out regarding AI risk”. Wonder if that’s close to the mark?
A first guess at what might be meant by AI governance is “all the non-technical stuff that we need to sort out regarding AI risk”. Wonder if that’s close to the mark?
A great first guess! It’s basically my favourite definition, though negative definitions probably aren’t all that satisfactory either.
We can make it more precise by saying (I’m not sure what the origin of this one is, it might be Jade Leung or Allan Dafoe):
AI governance has a descriptive part, focusing on the context and institutions that shape the incentives and behaviours of developers and users of AI, and a normative part, asking how should we navigate a transition to a world of advanced artificial intelligence?
It’s not quite the definition we want, but it’s a bit closer.
OK, thanks! The negative definition makes sense to me. I remain unconvinced that there is a positive definition that hits the same bundle of work, but I can see why we would want a handle for the non-technical work of AI risk mitigation (even before we know what the correct categories are within that).
Thanks for the response!
It makes sense not to specialize early, but I’m still confused about what the category is. For example, the closest thing to a definition in this post (btw, not a criticism if a definition is missing in this post. Perhaps it’s aimed at people with more context than me) seems to be:
To me, that seems to be synonymous with the AI risk problem in its entirety. A first guess at what might be meant by AI governance is “all the non-technical stuff that we need to sort out regarding AI risk”. Wonder if that’s close to the mark?
A great first guess! It’s basically my favourite definition, though negative definitions probably aren’t all that satisfactory either.
We can make it more precise by saying (I’m not sure what the origin of this one is, it might be Jade Leung or Allan Dafoe):
AI governance has a descriptive part, focusing on the context and institutions that shape the incentives and behaviours of developers and users of AI, and a normative part, asking how should we navigate a transition to a world of advanced artificial intelligence?
It’s not quite the definition we want, but it’s a bit closer.
OK, thanks! The negative definition makes sense to me. I remain unconvinced that there is a positive definition that hits the same bundle of work, but I can see why we would want a handle for the non-technical work of AI risk mitigation (even before we know what the correct categories are within that).