Algorithmic Unverifiability of Safety for Fixed and Recursively Self-Improving Systems
Read the original on arXiv AI →The paper proves that algorithmic safety verification for Turing‑complete, self‑modifying systems—whether fixed or recursively self‑improving—is fundamentally limited. Statistically, no verifier can be sound, complete, and tractable across unbounded domains, all finite configurations, or succinctly described finite environments, due to Rice’s, Gödel’s, Trakhtenbrot’s, coNP, and PSPACE barriers. Dynamically, even a single self‑modification step can render safety properties undecidable, and no total supervisory algorithm can guarantee correctness for all such transformations, though a monitor that raises alarms on violations remains feasible. whyItMatters":"The results show that formal safety guarantees for recursive self‑improvement are unattainable, highlighting intrinsic verification barriers for advanced AI systems."
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