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Measuring Goal-Directedness

Matt MacDermott · James Fox · Francesco Belardinelli · Tom Everitt

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Fri 13 Dec 4:30 p.m. PST — 7:30 p.m. PST

Abstract:

We define \emph{maximum entropy goal-directedness (MEG)}, a formal measure of goal-directedness in causal models and Markov decision processes, and give algorithms for computing it. Measuring goal-directedness is important, as its a critical element of many concerns about harm from AI. It is also of philosophical interest, as goal-directedness is a key aspect of agency.MEG is based on an adaption of the maximum causal entropy framework used in inverse reinforcement learning.It can be used to measures goal-directedness with respect to a known utility function, a hypothesis class of utility functions, or a set of random variables. We prove that MEG satisfies several desiderata, and demonstrate our algorithms in small-scale experiments.

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