{"id":8012,"date":"2021-09-25T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-25T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1368067"},"modified":"2021-09-25T13:00:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-25T13:00:59","slug":"ais-could-become-reward-junkies-and-experts-are-worried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8012","title":{"rendered":"AIs could become reward junkies \u2014 and experts are worried"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1953, a Harvard psychologist thought he discovered pleasure<\/a> \u2013 accidentally \u2013 within the cranium of a rat. With an electrode inserted into a specific area of its brain, the rat was allowed to pulse the implant by pulling a lever. It kept returning for more: insatiably, incessantly, lever-pulling. In fact, the rat didn\u2019t seem to want to do anything else. Seemingly, the reward centre of the brain had been located.<\/p>\n

More than 60 years later, in 2016, a pair<\/a> of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers<\/a> were training an AI to play video games. The goal of one game \u2013 Coastrunner \u2013 was to complete a racetrack. But the AI player was rewarded for picking up collectable items along the track. When the program was run, they witnessed<\/a> something strange. The AI found a way to skid in an unending circle, picking up an unlimited cycle of collectables. It did this, incessantly, instead of completing the course.<\/p>\n

What links these seemingly unconnected events is something strangely akin to addiction in humans. Some AI researchers<\/a> call the phenomenon \u201cwireheading<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n