Benchmarking AI's Metacognition and Building Wise AI Systems

​AI systems lack wisdom: they struggle with unpredictable environments, transparent reasoning, cooperation, and safety.

The BuzzRobot guests, professors from the University of Waterloo, define wisdom as navigating intractable problems through effective task-level strategies and metacognition.

While AI research has addressed task-level strategies, metacognition—reflecting on and regulating thought processes—remains underdeveloped.

Metacognitive capabilities like recognizing knowledge limits and considering diverse perspectives are essential for wise decision-making. Developing wise AI offers an alternative to the challenging task of aligning AI with specific human values.

​In this talk our guests will discuss potential approaches to building wise AI, including benchmarking metacognitive abilities and training AI systems to employ wise reasoning.