Roman Yampolskiy

Dr Roman Vladimirovich Yampolskiy is a Latvia-born professor of Computer Science and AI Safety & Security Researcher at the University of Louisville in Kentucky US, known for his work on behavioral biometrics, security of cyberworlds, and AI safety. He is currently the director of Cyber Security Laboratory in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering.

Yampolskiy is an author of some 100 peer-reviewed publications, including numerous books. He is an influential academic with an impressive body of work focused on the complexities of AI alignment and the existential risks associated with the current trajectory of events.

A family man and father, he often says that he cares about AI existential safety for very selfish reasons, as he doesn’t want future advanced AI to cause harm to his family, friends, community, country, planet and descendants.
He has dedicated his life to pursuing the goal of making future advanced AI globally beneficial, safe, and secure, as a superintelligence aligned with human values would be the greatest invention ever made.

His experience in AI safety and security research, spawns over 10 years of research leadership in the domain of transformational AI. A Fellow (2010) and a Research Advisor (2012) of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), an AI Safety Fellow (2019) of the Foresight Institute and a Research Associate (2018) of the Global Catastrophic Research Institute (GCRI). His work has been funded by NSF, NSA, DHS, EA Ventures and FLI. His early work on AI Safety Engineering, AI Containment and AI Accidents has become seminal in the field and is very well-cited.
He has given over a 100 public talks, served on program committees of multiple AI Safety conferences and journal editorial boards, has awards for teaching and service to the community and has given 100s of interviews on AI safety.
His recent research focus is on the theoretical limits to explainability, predictability and controllability of advanced intelligent systems. With collaborators, he continues his project related to analysis, handling and prediction/avoidance of AI accidents and failures. New projects related to monitorability, and forensic analysis of AI are currently in the pipeline.

Roman Yampolskiy: Dangers of Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #431

June 2, 2024 10:55 pm

Roman Yampolskiy is an AI safety researcher and author of a new book titled AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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TRANSCRIPT:
https://lexfridman.com/roman-yampolskiy-transcript

EPISODE LINKS:
Roman's X: https://twitter.com/romanyam
Roman's Website: http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry
Roman's AI book: https://amzn.to/4aFZuPb

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
2:20 - Existential risk of AGI
8:32 - Ikigai risk
16:44 - Suffering risk
20:19 - Timeline to AGI
24:51 - AGI turing test
30:14 - Yann LeCun and open source AI
43:06 - AI control
45:33 - Social engineering
48:06 - Fearmongering
57:57 - AI deception
1:04:30 - Verification
1:11:29 - Self-improving AI
1:23:42 - Pausing AI development
1:29:59 - AI Safety
1:39:43 - Current AI
1:45:05 - Simulation
1:52:24 - Aliens
1:53:57 - Human mind
2:00:17 - Neuralink
2:09:23 - Hope for the future
2:13:18 - Meaning of life

SOCIAL:
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- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
...

Roman Yampolskiy on Shoggoth, Scaling Laws, and Evidence for AI being Uncontrollable

February 2, 2024 5:19 pm

Roman Yampolskiy joins the podcast again to discuss whether AI is like a Shoggoth, whether scaling laws will hold for more agent-like AIs, evidence that AI is uncontrollable, and whether designing human-like AI would be safer than the current development path. You can read more about Roman's work at http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/

Timestamps:
00:00 Is AI like a Shoggoth?
09:50 Scaling laws
16:41 Are humans more general than AIs?
21:54 Are AI models explainable?
27:49 Using AI to explain AI
32:36 Evidence for AI being uncontrollable
40:29 AI verifiability
46:08 Will AI be aligned by default?
54:29 Creating human-like AI
1:03:41 Robotics and safety
1:09:01 Obstacles to AI in the economy
1:18:00 AI innovation with current models
1:23:55 AI accidents in the past and future
...

Deleted video

July 7, 2024 11:48 pm

Dr Roman Yampolskiy - AI Apocalypse: Are We Doomed? A Chilling Warning For Humanity

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Roman Yampolskiy on Objections to AI Safety

May 26, 2023 10:17 am

Roman Yampolskiy joins the podcast to discuss various objections to AI safety, impossibility results for AI, and how much risk civilization should accept from emerging technologies. You can read more about Roman's work at http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/

Timestamps:
00:00 Objections to AI safety
15:06 Will robots make AI risks salient?
27:51 Was early AI safety research useful?
37:28 Impossibility results for AI
47:25 How much risk should we accept?
1:01:21 Exponential or S-curve?
1:12:27 Will AI accidents increase?
1:23:56 Will we know who was right about AI?
1:33:33 Difference between AI output and AI model

Social Media Links:
➡️ WEBSITE: https://futureoflife.org
➡️ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/FLIxrisk
➡️ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/futureoflifeinstitute/
➡️ META: https://www.facebook.com/futureoflifeinstitute
➡️ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-of-life-institute/
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Roman Yampolskiy & Robin Hanson Discuss AI Risk

May 12, 2023 9:19 pm

Roman Yampolskiy & Robin Hanson Discuss AI Risk ...

Dr Roman Yampolskiy | The Case for Narrow AI

June 26, 2024 4:59 pm

*Dr Roman Yampolskiy | The Case for Narrow AI *
We discuss everything AI safety with Dr. Roman Yampolskiy. As AI technologies advance at a breakneck pace, the conversation highlights the pressing need to balance innovation with rigorous safety measures. Contrary to many other voices in the safety space, argues for the necessity and benefits of of maintaining AI as narrow, task-oriented systems.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:09 Meet Dr. Roman Yampolskiy
03:08 The Complex Relationship Between AI and Security
04:19 Challenges in AI Alignment and Control
11:55 The Debate on Open Source AI
14:40 Governance and Political Solutions for AI Safety
16:02 The Race to Superintelligence
17:03 Future Directions in AI Safety
21:31 Convincing the AI Community
23:33 Challenges in AI Safety and Collaboration
25:29 The Dilemma of Safety vs. Capabilities
26:13 Exploring Collaborative AI Efforts
27:02 The Limits of AI Control
29:56 Complexity in Multi-Agent Systems
31:34 Narrow AI and Targeted Solutions
33:39 Existential Hope
34:07 Insights from Roman's New Book
35:55 The Infinite Problem of AI Safety
38:18 Hopeful Outcomes and Narrow AI Applications
40:28 Governance and Future Breakthroughs
43:17 Final Thoughts and Best Advice

Dr Roman Yampolskiy holds a PhD degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo. There he was a recipient of a four year National Science Foundation IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) fellowship. His main areas of interest are behavioral biometrics, digital forensics, pattern recognition, genetic algorithms, neural networks, artificial intelligence and games, and he is an author of over 100 publications including multiple journal articles and books.

*About The Foresight Institute*

The Foresight Institute is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1986 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support. From molecular nanotechnology, to brain-computer interfaces, space exploration, cryptocommerce, and AI, Foresight gathers leading minds to advance research and accelerate progress toward flourishing futures.

*We are entirely funded by your donations. If you enjoy what we do please consider donating through our donation page:* https://foresight.org/donate/

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Dr. Roman Yampolskiy Interview, Part 1: For Humanity, An AI Safety Podcast Episode #4

November 22, 2023 6:08 am

In Episode #4, John Sherman interviews Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, Director of Cyber Security Laboratory in the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville. Yampolskiy is the author of more than 100 publications, including numerous books.

Among the many topics discussed in this episode:
-why more average people aren't more involved and upset about AI safety
-how frontier AI capabilities workers go to work every day knowing their work risks human extinction and go back to work the next day
-how we can talk to our kids about these dark, existential issues
-what if AI safety researchers concerned about human extinction over AI are just somehow wrong?

For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast, is the accessible AI Safety Podcast for all humans, no tech background required. Our show focuses solely on the threat of human extinction from AI.

Peabody Award-winning former journalist John Sherman explores the shocking worst-case scenario of artificial intelligence: human extinction. The makers of AI openly admit it their work could kill all humans, in as soon as 2 years. This podcast is solely about the threat of human extinction from AGI. We’ll meet the heroes and villains, explore the issues and ideas, and what you can do to help save humanity.

DR. ROMAN YAMPOLSKIY RESOURCES
Roman Yampolskiy's Twitter: https://twitter.com/romanyam
➡️Roman's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RomanYampolskiy
➡️Pause Giant AI Experiments (open letter): https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/...
➡️Roman on Medium: https://romanyam.medium.com/

#ai #aisafety #airisk #humanextinction #romanyampolskiy #samaltman #openai #anthropic #deepmind
...

"Nationalize Big AI" Roman Yampolskiy Interview Part 2: For Humanity An AI Safety Podcast Episode #5

November 27, 2023 8:20 pm

In Episode #5 Part 2: John Sherman interviews Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, Director of the Cyber Security Lab at the University of Louisville, and renowned AI safety researcher.

Among the many topics discussed in this episode:
-what is at the core of AI safety risk skepticism
-why AI safety research leaders themselves are so all over the map
-why journalism is failing so miserably to cover AI safety appropriately
-the drastic step the federal government could take to really slow Big AI down

For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast, is the accessible AI Safety Podcast for all humans, no tech background required. Our show focuses solely on the threat of human extinction from AI.

Peabody Award-winning former journalist John Sherman explores the shocking worst-case scenario of artificial intelligence: human extinction. The makers of AI openly admit it their work could kill all humans, in as soon as 2 years. This podcast is solely about the threat of human extinction from AGI. We’ll meet the heroes and villains, explore the issues and ideas, and what you can do to help save humanity.

ROMAN YAMPOLSKIY RESOURCES
Roman Yampolskiy's Twitter: https://twitter.com/romanyam
➡️Roman's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RomanYampolskiy
➡️Pause Giant AI Experiments (open letter): https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/...
➡️Roman on Medium: https://romanyam.medium.com/

#ai #aisafety #airisk #humanextinction #romanyampolskiy #samaltman #openai #anthropic #deepmind
...

Uncontrollable Superintelligence Dr Roman Yampolskiy Warns State Legislature

September 30, 2023 6:16 pm

Expert testifies to limits of control over advanced AI to state legislative committee. ...

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy Lighting talk on AI Control at MIT’s Mechanistic Interpretability Conference.

July 21, 2023 1:30 am

AI Safety and Security. AI generated summary:
The speaker discusses the challenges of creating beneficial, controllable, and safe AI and AI super intelligence. They suggest that explainability is a necessary tool to ensure safety results, but there are limitations to what the human mind can comprehend. The speaker proposes two options for dealing with complex systems: sharing the model itself as an explanation or providing a simplified explanation for consumers. They argue that for AI safety, a full understanding of a model is necessary, and that modular decomposition may not be sufficient. The speaker concludes by presenting their views on AI safety and inviting others to discuss their opinions.
...

Keynote Speaker on Artificial Intelligence and Future of Superintelligence

May 26, 2017 7:25 pm

Need a speaker for your event? Dr. Yampolskiy delivered 100+ Keynotes. He is an author of over 100 publications including multiple journal articles and books. His research has been cited by 1000+ scientists and profiled in popular magazines both American and foreign (New Scientist, Poker Magazine, Science World Magazine), dozens of websites (BBC, MSNBC, Yahoo, NBC, MIT Tech Review, ZDnet, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, TechRepublic, Futurism, H+ Magazine, Forbes, Daily Mail, Harvard Business Review, Communications of ACM, Daily Mirror, Popular Science, New Scientist, Financial Times, Wired), on radio (German National Radio, Swedish National Radio, Alex Jones Show) and TV. Contact: http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/ ...

Roman Yampolskiy's talk at Oxford AGI Conference - Reward Function Integrity in AI Systems

May 12, 2013 7:43 pm

Oxford Winter Intelligence - Abstract: In this paper we will address an important issue of reward function integrity in artificially intelligent systems. Throughout the paper, we will analyze historical examples of wireheading in man and machine and evaluate a number of approaches proposed for dealing with reward-function corruption. While simplistic optimizers driven to maximize a proxy measure for a particular goal will always be a subject to corruption, sufficiently rational self-improving machines are believed by many to be safe from wireheading problems. Claims are often made that such machines will know that their true goals are different from the proxy measures, utilized to represent the progress towards goal achievement in their fitness functions, and will choose not to modify their reward functions in a way which does not improve chances for the true goal achievement. Likewise, supposedly such advanced machines will choose to avoid corrupting other system components such as input sensors, memory, internal and external communication channels, CPU architecture and software modules. They will also work hard on making sure that external environmental forces including other agents will not make such modifications to them. We will present a number of potential reasons for arguing that wireheading problem is still far from being completely solved. Nothing precludes sufficiently smart self-improving systems from optimizing their reward mechanisms in order to optimize their current-goal achievement and in the process making a mistake leading to corruption of their reward functions.

In many ways the theme of this paper will be about how addiction and mental illness, topics well studied in human subjects, will manifest in artificially intelligent agents. We will describe behaviors equivalent to suicide, autism, antisocial personality disorder, drug addiction and many others in intelligent machines. Perhaps via better understanding of those problems in artificial agents we will also become better at dealing with them in biological entities.

A still unresolved issue is the problem of perverse instantiation. How can we provide orders to superintelligent machines without danger of ambiguous order interpretation resulting in a serious existential risk? The answer seems to require machines that have human-like common sense to interpret the meaning of our words. However being superintelligent and having common sense are not the same things and it is entirely possible that we will succeed in constructing a machine which has one without the other. Finding a way around the literalness problem is a major research challenge. A new language specifically developed to avoid ambiguity may be a step in the right direction.
Throughout the paper we will consider wireheading as a potential choice made by the intelligent agent. As smart machines become more prevalent, a possibility will arise that undesirable changes to the fitness function will be a product of the external environment. For example in the context of military robots the enemy may attempt to re-program the robot via hacking or computer virus to turn it against its original designers, a situation which is similar to that faced by human war prisoners subjected to brainwashing or hypnosis. Alternatively robots could be kidnapped and physically re-wired. In such scenarios it becomes important to be able to detect changes in the agent's reward function caused by forced or self-administered wireheading. Behavioral profiling of artificially intelligent agents may present a potential solution to wireheading detection.
The full paper will address the following challenges and potential solutions: Wireheading in Machines (Direct stimulation, Maximizing reward to the point of resource overconsumption, Killing humans to protect reward channel, Ontological Crises, Changing initial goals to an easier target, Infinite loop of reward collecting, Changing human desires or physical composition, Reward inflation and deflation), Perverse Instantiation, Sensory Illusions -- a Form of Indirect Wireheading. Potential Solutions to the Wireheading Problem (Inaccessible reward-function (hidden, encrypted, hardwired, etc.), Reward function resetting, Revulsion, Utility Indifference, External Controls, Evolutionary competition between agents, Learned Reward Function, Making utility function be bound to the real world).
...

Roman Yampolskiy Ignite Presentation Future SU potential dangers of exponential technologies

May 12, 2013 8:38 pm

My Ignite talk at Singularity University on potential dangers of exponential technologies. ...

The Future of AI: Too Much to Handle? With Roman Yampolskiy and 3 Dutch MPs

June 7, 2024 9:53 am

Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly in the last years. If this rise will continue, it could be a matter of time until AI approaches, or surpasses, human capability level at a wide range of tasks. Many AI industry leaders think this may occur in just a few years. What will happen if they are right?

Roman Yampolskiy (University of Louisville) will discuss the question of controllability of superhuman AI. The implications of his results for AI development, AI governance, and society will then be discussed in the panel with philosopher Simon Friederich (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Dutch parliamentarians Jesse Six Dijkstra (NSC), Queeny Rajkowski (VVD) and Marieke Koekkoek (Volt), policy officer Lisa Gotoh (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and AI PhD Tim Bakker (UvA).

The future of AI will become a determining factor of our century. If you want to understand future AI’s enormous consequences for the Netherlands and the world, this is an event not to miss!
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The Precautionary Principle and Superintelligence | A Conversation with Author Dr. Roman Yampolskiy

October 6, 2023 3:02 am

In this episode of Benevolent AI, safety researcher Dr. Roman Yampolskiy speaks with Host Dr. Ryan Merrill about societal concerns about controlling superintelligent AI systems. Based on his knowledge of what the top programmers are doing, Roman says at the most there is only a four year window - at most - to implement safety mechanisms before AI capabilities exceed human intelligence and are able to rewrite its own code. And that window could even be as short as one year from now. Either way, there’s not much time left.

Yampolskiy discusses the current approaches to instilling ethics in AI, as well as the bias shaped by the programmer who determines what is helpful or ethical. Yampolskiy advocates for a pause on development of more capable AI systems until safety is guaranteed. He compared the situation to the atomic bomb. Technology is advancing rapidly, so programmers urgently needs to establish social safeguards. More engagement is needed from the AI community to address these concerns now, to address the worst case scenario, then any positive outcome is a bonus. With all the risks of advanced AI, it also presents tremendous opportunities to benefit humanity, but safety first.

02:20 Yampolskiy's Forthcoming Book
04:01 Timeframe for Controlling AI Development

# About Roman V. Yampolskiy
Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a Tenured Associate Professor in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering, University of Louisville. He is the founding and current director of the Cyber Security Lab and an author of many books including Artificial Superintelligence: a Futuristic Approach.

To know more details- https://www.betterworlds.com/the-precautionary-principle-and-superintelligence-a-conversation-with-author-dr-roman-yampolskiy/

#superintelligence #precautionaryprinciple #artificialsuperintelligence #Benevolent #ai #safetyfirst

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Episode #44: “AI P-Doom Debate: 50% vs 99.999%” For Humanity: An AI Risk Podcast

September 4, 2024 3:06 pm

In Episode #44, host John Sherman brings back friends of For Humanity Dr. Roman Yamopolskiy and Liron Shapira. Roman is an influential AI safety researcher, thought leader, and Associate Professor at the University of Louisville. Liron is a tech CEO and host of the excellent Doom Debates podcast. Roman famously holds a 99.999% p-doom, Liron has a nuanced 50%. John starts out at 75%, unrelated to their numbers. Where are you? Did Roman or Liron move you in their direction at all? Let us know in the comments!

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EMAIL JOHN: [email protected]

This podcast is not journalism. But it’s not opinion either. This is a long form public service announcement. This show simply strings together the existing facts and underscores the unthinkable probable outcome, the end of all life on earth.

For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast, is the accessible AI Safety Podcast for all humans, no tech background required. Our show focuses solely on the threat of human extinction from AI.

Peabody Award-winning former journalist John Sherman explores the shocking worst-case scenario of artificial intelligence: human extinction. The makers of AI openly admit it their work could kill all humans, in as soon as 2 years. This podcast is solely about the threat of human extinction from AGI. We’ll meet the heroes and villains, explore the issues and ideas, and what you can do to help save humanity.

RESOURCES:

BUY ROMAN’S NEW BOOK ON AMAZON
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SUBSCRIBE TO LIRON SHAPIRA’S DOOM DEBATES on YOUTUBE!!
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Max Winga’s “A Stark Warning About Extinction”
https://youtu.be/kDcPW5WtD58?si=i6IRy82xZ2PUOp22

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Statement on AI Risk | CAIS
https://www.safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-risk

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