Stuart Russell, Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of the Center for Intelligent Systems, presents his thoughts on what AI is, what AI can become, and how policymakers and other AI actors can and should try to manage the risks related to AI use.
Prof. Russell talked at the OECD.AI Expert Forum on April 2023. The OECD.AI Policy Observatory combines resources from across the OECD and its partners from all stakeholder groups. It facilitates dialogue and provides multidisciplinary, evidence-based policy analysis and data on AI’s areas of impact. When the goal is general-purpose AI – says Prof. Russell – that means AI systems that can do whatever humans can do learn to do it quickly, and probably exceed humans’ capacity. But what if we succeed? he asks. “We hope for a better civilization” he answers, especially with all the capital that’s invested in AGI, but in fact, we don’t know what shape it is or where it goes. Stuart Russell’s research for the last decade focused on how to retain power over entities more powerful than us, forever, and this question led him and other experts to sign the open letter asking for a pause in developing these systems. We, humans, need to be prepared ahead of time and have solutions and regulations in place. Today, we (including the leading builders of AI systems) have no idea if LLMs (Large Language Models) created internal goals to better imitate humans.
Stuart Russell received his B.A. with first-class honours in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1986. His research covers a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence including machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision-making, multitarget tracking, computer vision, computational physiology, global seismic monitoring, and philosophical foundations.
Watch the full video of Russell’s talk (21 min.)