LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“What goals will AIs have? A list of hypotheses” by Daniel Kokotajlo


Listen Later

My colleagues and I have written a scenario in which AGI-level AI systems are trained around 2027 using something like the current paradigm: LLM-based agents (but with recurrence/neuralese) trained with vast amounts of outcome-based reinforcement learning on diverse challenging short, medium, and long-horizon tasks, with methods such as Deliberative Alignment being applied in an attempt to align them.

What goals would such AI systems have?

This post attempts to taxonomize various possibilities and list considerations for and against each.

We are keen to get feedback on these hypotheses and the arguments surrounding them. What important considerations are we missing?

Summary

We first review the training architecture and capabilities of a hypothetical future "Agent-3," to give us a concrete setup to talk about for which goals will arise. Then, we walk through the following hypotheses about what goals/values/principles/etc. Agent-3 would have:

  1. Written goal specification: Any written specifications, written by [...]

---

Outline:

(00:48) Summary

(03:29) Summary of Agent-3 training architecture and capabilities

(08:33) Loose taxonomy of possibilities

(08:37) Hypothesis 1: Written goal specifications

(12:00) Hypothesis 2: Developer-intended goals

(15:30) Hypothesis 3: Unintended version of written goals and/or human intentions

(20:25) Hypothesis 4: Reward/reinforcement

(24:06) Hypothesis 5: Proxies and/or instrumentally convergent goals:

(29:57) Hypothesis 6: Other goals:

(33:09) Weighted and If-Else Compromises

(35:38) Scrappy Poll:

---

First published:

March 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r86BBAqLHXrZ4mWWA/what-goals-will-ais-have-a-list-of-hypotheses

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,334 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,399 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

7,817 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,107 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

87 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology

Your Undivided Attention

1,453 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

8,761 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

90 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

353 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,356 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,023 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

464 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

128 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

73 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

433 Listeners