As AI technology is rapidly progressing in capability and being adopted more widely across society, it is more important than ever to understand the potential risks AI may pose and how AI can be developed and deployed safely. Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society offers a comprehensive and accessible guide to this topic.
This book explores a range of ways in which societies could fail to harness AI safely in coming years, such as malicious use, accidental failures, erosion of safety standards due to competition between AI developers or nation-states, and potential loss of control over autonomous systems. Grounded in the latest technical advances, this book offers a timely perspective on the challenges involved in making current AI systems safer. Ensuring that AI systems are safe is not just a problem for researchers in machine learning – it is a societal challenge that cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Integrating insights from safety engineering, economics, and other relevant fields, this book provides readers with fundamental concepts to understand and manage AI risks more effectively.
This is an invaluable resource for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses relating to AI Safety & Alignment, AI Ethics, AI Policy, and the Societal Impacts of AI, as well as anyone trying to better navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI safety.
Introduction
Section I AI and Societal-Scale Risks
Chapter 01 Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks
Chapter 02 Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals
Section II Safety
Chapter 03 Single-Agent Safety
Chapter 04 Safety Engineering
Chapter 05 Complex Systems
Section III Ethics and Society
Chapter 06 Beneficial AI and Machine Ethics
Chapter 07 Collective Action Problems
Chapter 08 Governance
Acknowledgements
References
Biography
Dr. Dan Hendrycks is a machine learning researcher and Director of the Center for AI Safety (CAIS), USA. Dan holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from UC Berkeley. Dr. Hendrycks has given dozens of accessible and engaging talks on AI safety to diverse audiences at institutions such as OpenAI, Google, and Stanford. His expertise is regularly sought, evidenced by his role in organizing AI safety-related workshops at prestigious conferences, including NeurIPS, ICML, and ECCV. His work has not only had a substantial impact on the academic community but has also gained considerable public attention. Dr. Hendrycks has been profiled in media outlets like the Boston Globe and has had his work featured in the BBC, New York Times, TIME Magazine, and Washington Post.
"This book is an important resource for anyone interested in understanding and mitigating the risks associated with increasingly powerful AI systems. It provides not only an accessible introduction to the technical challenges in making AI safer, but also a clear-eyed account of the coordination problems we will need to solve on a societal level to ensure AI is developed and deployed safely."
Yoshua Bengio, Professor of Computer Science, University of Montreal, Canada, and Turing Award Winner
"A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the full complexities of AI risk."
David Krueger, Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK
"The most comprehensive exposition for the case that AI raises catastrophic risks and what to do about them. Even if you disagree with some of Hendrycks' arguments, this book is still very much worth reading, if only for the unique coverage of both the technical and social aspects of the field."
Boaz Barak, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University, USA
