Agent57: Outperforming the human Atari benchmark

The Atari57 suite of games is a long-standing benchmark to gauge agent performance across a wide range of tasks. Weve developed Agent57, the first deep reinforcement learning agent to obtain a score that is above the human baseline on all 57 Atari 2600 games. Agent57 combines an algorithm for efficient exploration with a meta-controller that adapts the exploration and long vs. short-term behaviour of the agent.Read More

Artificial Intelligence, Values and Alignment

This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. A principle-based approach to AI alignment, which combines these elements in a systematic way, has considerable advantages in this context. Third, the central challenge for theorists is not to identify ‘true’ moral principles for AI; rather, it is to identify fair principles for alignment, that receive reflective endorsement despite widespread variation in people’s moral beliefs. The final part of the paper explores three ways in which fair principles for AI alignment could potentially be identified.Read More

International evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening

Screening mammography aims to identify breast cancer before symptoms appear, enabling earlier therapy for more treatable disease. Despite the existence of screening programs worldwide, interpretation of these images suffers from suboptimal rates of false positives and false negatives. Here we present an AI system capable of surpassing a single expert reader in breast cancer prediction performance.Read More