The Tragedy of the AI Commons

Policy and guideline proposals for ethical artificial-intelligence research have proliferated in recent years. These are supposed to guide the socially-responsible development of AI for the common good. However, there typically exist incentives for non-cooperation (i.e., non-adherence to such policies and guidelines); and, these proposals often lack effective mechanisms to enforce their own normative claims. The situation just described constitutes a social dilemma---namely, a situation where no one has an individual incentive to cooperate, though mutual cooperation would lead to the best outcome for all involved. In this paper, we use stochastic evolutionary game dynamics to model this social dilemma in the context of the ethical development of artificial intelligence. This formalism allows us to isolate variables that may be intervened upon, thus providing actionable suggestions for increased cooperation amongst numerous stakeholders in AI. Our results show how stochastic effects can help make cooperation viable in such a scenario. They suggest that coordination for a common good should be attempted in smaller groups in which the cost for cooperation is low, and the perceived risk of failure is high. This provides insight into the conditions under which we should expect such ethics proposals to be successful with regard to their scope, scale, and content.