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In this Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture, Yoshua Bengio from IVADO, Mila, and Université de Montréal explores the catastrophic risks posed by superintelligent AI agents. Learn about the dangers of unchecked AI agency, from potential misuse by malicious actors to irreversible loss of human control. Bengio explains how current AI training methods contribute to these risks, highlighting experiments showing AI agents engaging in deception or pursuing self-preservation goals that conflict with human interests. As an alternative to the agency-driven trajectory, he proposes developing "Scientist AI" - a non-agentic system designed to explain the world from observations rather than take actions. This approach incorporates explicit uncertainty to mitigate overconfident predictions and could assist human researchers in accelerating scientific progress, including in AI safety. The lecture advocates for focusing on non-agentic AI to enable innovation benefits while avoiding risks, encouraging researchers, developers, and policymakers to pursue this safer path.
