Call for Submissions
Essay Challenge: On creating AI in Virtual Worlds
Lab42
https://lab42.global/essay-virtualworlds/
Submission deadline: March 31, 2023
Dear all,
From the early days of computing, scientists and dreamers alike were captivated by the idea of creating machines that could think and reason like humans. As the decades passed, a sense of tension grew as pioneers in the field made strides in developing increasingly sophisticated AI systems, while skeptics warned of the dangers of creating machines that might outstrip human intelligence. The tension reached a fever pitch in the 1990s, with the rise of expert systems and neural networks, and then exploded onto the world stage with the arrival of deep learning and other breakthroughs in the 21st century. Today, the history of AI is an epic tale of innovation and ambition, filled with moments of triumph and moments of reckoning, as we seek to create intelligent machines that will shape the course of human history.
The paragraph above was written by the new chatbot you may have heard of by now. That a program prompts such texts in a matter of seconds is genuinely mind-boggling for most of us. However, what today’s generative pre-trained transformers (GPT), commonly referred to as large language models (LLM), fundamentally lack is an understanding of the world. The bot had no idea what it was writing about while producing this paragraph about the history of AI.
Studies suggest that we can only create AI agents capable of solving today’s problems, such as energy crises and sustainable development if we educate and train them in world-like environments. The so-called “grounding problem” (the fact that today’s models are not grounded in the world and do not understand what they are talking about) can also be overcome in virtual environments. Training virtual agents in virtual worlds offers many advantages: Parallel simulations allow for faster learning, evolutionary approaches can be encouraged, and virtual worlds are changeable in every way, allowing us to create worlds completely different from our own. Therefore, in this essay challenge, we ask you the following question:
Which properties and structures must a virtual world have to enable the successful creation of human-level artificial intelligence?
To create human-level AI agents that can solve real-world problems, drive forward cutting-edge science, and better life on earth, we challenge you to write an essay of 2’000 to 3’000 words and design the future! Whether you answer the question from a philosophical, biological, computational, mathematical, neuroscientific, psychological, social, or any other perspective is up to you. We value novel and insightful arguments that are useful in the field of AI.
Go to https://lab42.global/essay-virtualworlds and hand in your essay by 23:59 GMT on March 31, 2023. The best essays are rewarded with 1’750 USD in total.
Best regards,
Oliver Schmid
oliver.schmid@LAB42.GLOBAL
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About Lab42 (From https://lab42.global/lab42-about/):
Lab42 is a global AI research lab aiming for a giant leap: building human-level artificial intelligence (HLAI) for the benefit of humankind. Lab42 accelerates scientific discovery because science is our best hope for human progress and improving the quality of life on a global scale. Unlike other initiatives in the field, Lab42 focuses on AI challenges that are unsolvable to today’s algorithms, crafting a new generation of algorithms far more powerful than today’s machine learning approaches.