Recently, I’ve been thinking about the implications of a world where general-purpose robots are developed before AGI. (In such a world, I imagine, trillions of robots would permeate society, replace factory workers, work in homes, etc.)
One implication could be increased AI takeover risk. Intuitively, widespread robots might make takeover substantially easier for a variety of reasons, such as by giving a ASI readily available physical actors and making it easier to secure datacenters / other physical infrastructure crucial to AI. On the other hand, a superintelligence may have an unfathomable number of other ways to gain power or cause extinction. If takeover is thus already likely through other routes, perhaps pre-existing robots add only a negligible amount to total risk.
TL;DR: Does anyone know of good discussions on whether widespread general-purpose robots before ASI would meaningfully increase takeover risk?
I’ve found scarcely anything on this; discussions from Paul Christiano and Nick Bostrom, for instance, argue that AI could take over without general-purpose robots, but don’t address how much additional risk pre-existing general-purpose robots would create.
If anyone knows of relevant readings or discussions, would really appreciate it. Also, I understand the effect is difficult to quantify, so am just trying to get a sense of how people think about its likely magnitude.
Do general-purpose robots meaningfully increase ASI takeover risk?
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the implications of a world where general-purpose robots are developed before AGI. (In such a world, I imagine, trillions of robots would permeate society, replace factory workers, work in homes, etc.)
One implication could be increased AI takeover risk. Intuitively, widespread robots might make takeover substantially easier for a variety of reasons, such as by giving a ASI readily available physical actors and making it easier to secure datacenters / other physical infrastructure crucial to AI. On the other hand, a superintelligence may have an unfathomable number of other ways to gain power or cause extinction. If takeover is thus already likely through other routes, perhaps pre-existing robots add only a negligible amount to total risk.
TL;DR: Does anyone know of good discussions on whether widespread general-purpose robots before ASI would meaningfully increase takeover risk?
I’ve found scarcely anything on this; discussions from Paul Christiano and Nick Bostrom, for instance, argue that AI could take over without general-purpose robots, but don’t address how much additional risk pre-existing general-purpose robots would create.
If anyone knows of relevant readings or discussions, would really appreciate it. Also, I understand the effect is difficult to quantify, so am just trying to get a sense of how people think about its likely magnitude.