Perhaps try explaining by analogy, or providing examples of ways we’re already messing up.
Like the YouTube algorithm. It only maximizes the amount of time people spend on the platform, because (charitably) Google thought that’d be a useful metric for the quality of the content it provides. But instead, it ended up figuring out that if it showed people videos which convinced them of extreme political ideologies, then it would be easier to find videos which would make them angry/happy/sad/other addictive emotions which would keep them on the platform.
This particular problem has since been fixed, but it took quite a while to figure out what was going on, and more time to figure out how to fix it. Maybe use analogies of genies who, if you imperfectly specify your wish, will find some way to technically satisfy it, but screw you over in the process.
One thing which stops me from explaining things well to my parents is the fear of looking weird. Which usually doesn’t stop me (to a fault) when talking with anyone else, but I guess not with my parents. You can avert this via ye-olde Appeal to Authority. Tell them the idea was popularized, in part, by professor Stuart Russel—the writer of the world’s foremost textbook on artificial intelligence—in his book Human Compatible, who currently runs the organization HCAI at Berkeley to tackle this very problem.
edit: Also, be sure to note it’s not just HCAI who’s working on this problem. There’s also MIRI, DeepMind, Anthropic, and other organizations.
Perhaps try explaining by analogy, or providing examples of ways we’re already messing up.
Like the YouTube algorithm. It only maximizes the amount of time people spend on the platform, because (charitably) Google thought that’d be a useful metric for the quality of the content it provides. But instead, it ended up figuring out that if it showed people videos which convinced them of extreme political ideologies, then it would be easier to find videos which would make them angry/happy/sad/other addictive emotions which would keep them on the platform.
This particular problem has since been fixed, but it took quite a while to figure out what was going on, and more time to figure out how to fix it. Maybe use analogies of genies who, if you imperfectly specify your wish, will find some way to technically satisfy it, but screw you over in the process.
One thing which stops me from explaining things well to my parents is the fear of looking weird. Which usually doesn’t stop me (to a fault) when talking with anyone else, but I guess not with my parents. You can avert this via ye-olde Appeal to Authority. Tell them the idea was popularized, in part, by professor Stuart Russel—the writer of the world’s foremost textbook on artificial intelligence—in his book Human Compatible, who currently runs the organization HCAI at Berkeley to tackle this very problem.
edit: Also, be sure to note it’s not just HCAI who’s working on this problem. There’s also MIRI, DeepMind, Anthropic, and other organizations.