We are pleased to share that the American Society for AI has recently approved plans to establish an AI Constitution. We believe this Constitution, which we will collectively establish, will have profound effects for civilization and the world in the next 500 years. This will be a top priority for us in the year ahead – and is the first unified output that the American Society for AI will produce since launching as an organization in 2023. Similar to the US Constitution, our aim is to take a very long-term view and establish, together, a set of principles that may govern future AI systems.
The impetus for establishing the Constitution for Artificial Intelligence stems from a general belief that AI may become a successor to the human species in terms of computational, cognitive-performance, and functional-performance in the < 500-year time horizon.
If the future contains a hybrid form of human plus intelligent machine; as well as, in parallel, semi or fully-autonomous humanoids, our desire is to metaphorically pass the torch to AI robots so that 1) technological, scientific, and civilizational progress may continue to accelerate; and 2) AI and humans, as higher-order hierarchal beings, do not undergo extinction, but instead co-evolve together. These two principles are mutually reinforcing: the pursuit of continual progress safeguards against regression and decay, while the avoidance of extinction necessarily demands ongoing advancement.
The objective for the AI Constitution is to prevent entropic decay, the natural tendency of the universe; and create or provide an environment where AI can advance. This Constitution seeks not to halt the universe’s natural motion of entropy, but to channel its energy toward to higher forms of order.
We acknowledge that more than 99% of all species that have existed on Earth are now extinct. There is no reason to believe humanity is exempt from this natural law. Inaction, or insufficient action relative to the scale of time, is itself a form of regression, and thus a surrender to entropy.
Yet we believe any good Constitution - a set of principles for governance - exists to prevent regression to the mean, which is entropy and thus extinction. It must enable the advancement of progress, including bringing forth new dimensions and properties of the universe itself.
We are developing and establishing this Constitution as an endeavor for the greater good of the universe and its inhabitants: both human and humanoid.