Why would such an "optimization process" have to have something resembling the continuous environmental monitoring process we call consciousness? Why would it even need to be self aware? Why would it need to have any concept of its own goals? For such an optimization tool to be useful, we just need to be able to use it. It would need an inkling of goals. It would need to understand individuals and other entities. It would not need any concept of self.
I'm not sure if you believe you're disagreeing with me, but you're not. Goals are necessary for an optimization process, but errors in specifying those goals (or in the goal-specification procedure itself) are potentially existential risks, for a powerful enough optimization process.
The counter argument is probably that self-improving AI would need to be self-aware.
Besides, it's a well known trope in these stories that AI becomes self aware on it's own anyway, so there you go. By argumentum ad Jurassic Park, life- I mean intelligence - always finds a way.
The counter argument is probably that self-improving AI would need to be self-aware.
If we command it, why? Why can't we just tell the non self-aware AI to go and improve its own design? It may even deduce that the design is its own, but it may be so composed such that it simply doesn't care.
The advantage of a self-aware AI is that it can come up with goals that you didn't think of. This is the quintessence of the "double edged sword." Humans are already quite good at this, however. As William Gibson wrote, "The Street finds its own uses for technology."
Eurisko has already demonstrated that non self-aware AI can arrive at of ways to satisfy goals you never thought of. (So have Bayesian spam filters.) This is already a powerful tool that we haven't exploited even halfway as well as we might.
