Trust AI Regulation? Discerning users are vital to build trust and effective AI regulation

There is general agreement that some form of regulation is necessary both for AI creators to be incentivised to develop trustworthy systems, and for users to actually trust those systems. But there is much debate about what form these regulations should take and how they should be implemented. Most work in this area has been qualitative, and has not been able to make formal predictions. Here, we propose that evolutionary game theory can be used to quantitatively model the dilemmas faced by users, AI creators, and regulators, and provide insights into the possible effects of different regulatory regimes. We show that creating trustworthy AI and user trust requires regulators to be incentivised to regulate effectively. We demonstrate the effectiveness of two mechanisms that can achieve this. The first is where governments can recognise and reward regulators that do a good job. In that case, if the AI system is not too risky for users then some level of trustworthy development and user trust evolves. We then consider an alternative solution, where users can condition their trust decision on the effectiveness of the regulators. This leads to effective regulation, and consequently the development of trustworthy AI and user trust, provided that the cost of implementing regulations is not too high. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the effect of different regulatory regimes from an evolutionary game theoretic perspective.

Words are not Wind -- How Joint Commitment and Reputation Solve Social Dilemmas, without Repeated Interactions or Enforcement by Third Parties

Joint commitment was argued to "make our social world" (Gilbert, 2014) and to separate us from other primates. 'Joint' entails that neither of us promises anything, unless the other promises as well. When we need to coordinate for the best mutual outcome, any commitment is beneficial. However, when we are tempted to free-ride (i.e. in social dilemmas), commitment serves no obvious purpose. We show that a reputation system, which judges action in social dilemmas only after joint commitment, can prevent free-riding. Keeping commitments builds trust. We can selectively enter joint commitments with trustworthy individuals to ensure their cooperation (since they will now be judged). We simply do not commit to cooperate with those we do not trust, and hence can freely defect without losing the trust of others. This principle might be the reason for pointedly public joint commitments, such as marriage. It is especially relevant to our evolutionary past, in which no mechanisms existed to enforce commitments reliably and impartially (e.g. via a powerful and accountable government). Much research from anthropology, philosophy and psychology made the assumption that past collaborations were mutually beneficial and had little possibilities to free-ride, for which there is little support. Our evolutionary game theory approach proves that this assumption is not necessary, because free-riding could have been dealt with joint commitments and reputation.