Fundamental Impossibility Results in AI Safety: Trading Off between Desiderata
Is there a fundamental tradeoff between desiderata for safe AI systems, such as harmlessness and helpfulness? We answer by formalizing the interaction between AI systems and users as a game with three players: a defender and an attacker that are computationally or informationally bounded, and an AI that provides public advice and is less constrained. Our main result shows that there is a fundamental tradeoff in providing advice that helps the defender while advice remains public. We also consider whether the information that the AI shares can be manipulated to benefit only the defender and conclude with a discussion of how we can use these results in designing safer AI systems.
| Authors | Ida Mattsson, Ratip Emin Berker, Emanuel Tewolde et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.GT |
| Published | 19 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 19 October 2026 |
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 21 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.