{"id":159748,"date":"2025-04-02T15:57:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/deepminds-145-page-paper-on-agi-safety-may-not-convince-skeptics-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:57:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:57:35","slug":"deepminds-145-page-paper-on-agi-safety-may-not-convince-skeptics-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/deepminds-145-page-paper-on-agi-safety-may-not-convince-skeptics-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"DeepMind&#8217;s 145-page paper on AGI safety may not convince skeptics | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google DeepMind on Wednesday published an <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/deepmind-media\/DeepMind.com\/Blog\/evaluating-potential-cybersecurity-threats-of-advanced-ai\/An_Approach_to_Technical_AGI_Safety_Apr_2025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">exhaustive paper<\/a> on its safety approach to AGI, roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AGI is a bit of a controversial subject in the AI field, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/research\/research-news\/dont-believe-the-hype-agi-is-far-from-inevitable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">naysayers<\/a> suggesting that it\u2019s little more than a pipe dream. Others, including <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/03\/19\/the-ai-leaders-bringing-the-agi-debate-down-to-earth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">major AI labs like Anthropic<\/a>, warn that it\u2019s around the corner, and could result in catastrophic harms if steps aren\u2019t taken to implement appropriate safeguards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DeepMind\u2019s 145-page document, which was co-authored by DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg, predicts that AGI could arrive by 2030, and that it may result in what the authors call \u201csevere harm.\u201d The paper doesn\u2019t concretely define this, but gives the alarmist example of \u201cexistential risks\u201d that \u201cpermanently destroy humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c[We anticipate] the development of an Exceptional AGI before the end of the current decade,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cAn Exceptional AGI is a system that has a capability matching at least 99th percentile of skilled adults on a wide range of non-physical tasks, including metacognitive tasks like learning new skills.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Off the bat, the paper contrasts DeepMind\u2019s treatment of AGI risk mitigation with Anthropic\u2019s and OpenAI\u2019s. Anthropic, it says, places less emphasis on \u201crobust training, monitoring, and security,\u201d while OpenAI is overly bullish on \u201cautomating\u201d a form of AI safety research known as alignment research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paper also casts doubt on the viability of superintelligent AI \u2014 AI that can perform jobs better than any human. (OpenAI <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/01\/05\/openai-is-beginning-to-turn-its-attention-to-superintelligence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently claimed<\/a> that it\u2019s turning its aim from AGI to superintelligence.) Absent \u201csignificant architectural innovation,\u201d the DeepMind authors aren\u2019t convinced that superintelligent systems will emerge soon \u2014 if ever. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paper does find it plausible, though, that current paradigms will enable \u201crecursive AI improvement\u201d: a positive feedback loop where AI conducts its own AI research to create more sophisticated AI systems. And this could be incredibly dangerous, assert the authors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At a high level, the paper proposes and advocates for the development of techniques to block bad actors\u2019 access to hypothetical AGI, improve the understanding of AI systems\u2019 actions, and \u201charden\u201d the environments in which AI can act. It acknowledges that many of the techniques are nascent and have \u201copen research problems,\u201d but cautions against ignoring the safety challenges possibly on the horizon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe transformative nature of AGI has the potential for both incredible benefits as well as severe harms,\u201d the authors write. \u201cAs a result, to build AGI responsibly, it is critical for frontier AI developers to proactively plan to mitigate severe harms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some experts disagree with the paper\u2019s premises, however. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Heidy\u00a0Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the nonprofit AI Now Institute, told TechCrunch that she thinks the concept of AGI is too ill-defined to be \u201crigorously evaluated scientifically.\u201d Another AI researcher, Matthew Guzdial, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, said that he doesn\u2019t believe recursive AI improvement is realistic at present. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c[Recursive improvement] is the basis for the intelligence singularity arguments,\u201d Guzdial told TechCrunch, \u201cbut we\u2019ve never seen any evidence for it working.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sandra Wachter, a researcher studying tech and regulation at Oxford, argues that a more realistic concern is AI reinforcing itself with \u201cinaccurate outputs.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWith the proliferation of generative AI outputs on the internet and the gradual replacement of authentic data, models are now learning from their own outputs that are riddled with mistruths, or hallucinations,\u201d she told TechCrunch. \u201cAt this point, chatbots are predominantly used for search and truth-finding purposes. That means we are constantly at risk of being fed mistruths and believing them because they are presented in very convincing ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Comprehensive as it may be, DeepMind\u2019s paper seems unlikely to settle the debates over just how realistic AGI is \u2014 and the areas of AI safety in most urgent need of attention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/04\/02\/deepminds-145-page-paper-on-agi-safety-may-not-convince-skeptics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google DeepMind on Wednesday published an exhaustive paper on its safety approach to AGI, roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can. AGI is a bit of a controversial subject in the AI field, with naysayers suggesting that it\u2019s little more than a pipe dream. Others, including major AI labs like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-159748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}