Complex Systems are Hard to Control

The deployment of powerful deep learning systems such as ChatGPT raises the question of how to make these systems safe and consistently aligned with human intent. Since building these systems is an engineering challenge, it is tempting to think of the safety of these systems primarily through a traditional engineering lens, focusing on reliability, modularity, redundancy, and reducing the long tail of failures. While engineering is a useful lens, it misses an important part of the picture: deep ...