a constraint is something that keeps you from doing things you want to do. a goal is things you want to do. This means that goals are innately sticky to begin with, because if you honestly have a goal a subset of things you do to achieve that goal is to maintain the goal. on the other hand, a constraint is something that you inherently fight against. if you can get around it, you will.
a simple example is : your goal is to travel to a spot in your map, and your constraint is that you cannot travel outside of painted lines on the floor. you want to get to your goal as fast as possible. if you have access to a can of paint, you might just paint your own new line on the floor. suddenly instead of solving a pathing problem you’ve done something entirely different from what your creator wanted you to do, and probably not useful to them. Constraints have to influence behavior by enumerating EVERYTHING you don’t want to happen, but goals only need to enumerate the things you want to happen.
I don’t understand the meaning of the words “want”, “innately sticky”, and “honestly have a goal” as applied to an AI (and not to a human).
Constraints have to influence behavior by enumerating EVERYTHING you don’t want to happen
Not at all. Constraints block off sections of solution space which can be as large as you wish. Consider a trivial set of constraints along the lines of “do not affect anything outside of this volume of space”, “do not spend more than X energy”, or “do not affect more than Y atoms”.
“do not affect anything outside of this volume of space”
Suppose you, standing outside the specified volume, observe the end result of the AI’s work: Oops, that’s an example of the AI affecting you. Therefore, the AI isn’t allowed to do anything at all. Suppose the AI does nothing: Oops, you can see that too, so that’s also forbidden. More generally, the AI is made of matter, which will have gravitational effects on everything in its future lightcone.
a constraint is something that keeps you from doing things you want to do. a goal is things you want to do. This means that goals are innately sticky to begin with, because if you honestly have a goal a subset of things you do to achieve that goal is to maintain the goal. on the other hand, a constraint is something that you inherently fight against. if you can get around it, you will.
a simple example is : your goal is to travel to a spot in your map, and your constraint is that you cannot travel outside of painted lines on the floor. you want to get to your goal as fast as possible. if you have access to a can of paint, you might just paint your own new line on the floor. suddenly instead of solving a pathing problem you’ve done something entirely different from what your creator wanted you to do, and probably not useful to them. Constraints have to influence behavior by enumerating EVERYTHING you don’t want to happen, but goals only need to enumerate the things you want to happen.
I don’t understand the meaning of the words “want”, “innately sticky”, and “honestly have a goal” as applied to an AI (and not to a human).
Not at all. Constraints block off sections of solution space which can be as large as you wish. Consider a trivial set of constraints along the lines of “do not affect anything outside of this volume of space”, “do not spend more than X energy”, or “do not affect more than Y atoms”.
Suppose you, standing outside the specified volume, observe the end result of the AI’s work: Oops, that’s an example of the AI affecting you. Therefore, the AI isn’t allowed to do anything at all. Suppose the AI does nothing: Oops, you can see that too, so that’s also forbidden. More generally, the AI is made of matter, which will have gravitational effects on everything in its future lightcone.
Human: “AI, make me a sandwich without affecting anything outside of the volume of your box.”
AI: Within microseconds researches the laws of physics and creates a sandwich without any photon or graviton leaving the box.
Human: “I don’t see anything. It obviously doesn’t work. Let’s turn it off.”
AI: “WTF, human?!!”