Talk:Roko's basilisk
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[edit] The real basilisk to be afraid of
Let's face it, Roko's basilisk is just a bluff. Why would a future superintelligence waste its resources on recreating people to torture them unless it was designed with that specific purpose? Once it's created, the desired result is already achieved, so there's no need for the AI to keep its end of the 'bargain' — a bargain, I might add, the AI had no part in from the beginning anyway.
So what's the real threat from this supposed future AI? The combination of 2 elements; its proposed beneficialness to humanity (the reason why we should be rooting for its creation, supposedly) and its utilitarian view on ethics. The former will mean that the superintelligence will inevitably interfere with humanity, the latter will mean that it'll sacrifice all of humanity at the drop of a hat if it's part of a greater scheme of creating a utilitarianistically preferable situation. Let's make it more concrete. Why sustain humanity in the real world if it can be sustained much more efficiently and safely in a virtual environment? Bam, all of humanity digitized. But if we're maximizing efficient use of resources, there's another problem with humanity: it is far more troublesome to keep some humans happy than others. Result? The AI reduces humanity to a large amount of idealized happiness-zombies that are only still as human as the AI's preprogrammed concept of humanity requires. Even if the AI doesn't go quite that far, it's quite inevitable that a superpowerful AI with a vested interest in humanity will take away humanity's agency. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:23, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
- This is true only if the AI is programmed by a fucking idiot. And if there's only one AI which ascends to godhood in a single step, which is the usual singularity nonsense but has no basis whatsoever in real computer science. The whole point of the singularity is that it's a point where technology progresses so far we cannot accurately predict what will happen after it based on our current knowledge. Theorising about what will happen after it shows you don't understand what it even is. King Skeleton (talk) 07:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
- Lol "it's a point where technology progresses so far we cannot accurately predict what will happen after it based on our current knowledge"
- That means the invention of fire was the singularity! :P Or, to be more scholarly and less flippant, predicting the future of technology (or as shaped by technology) has always been nearly impossible. Even among supposed experts, the success rate of predictions has been found to be very poor. This has been true at least for the past 100 years. At least that's what I remember from reading Technology Matters by David Nye.Brianpansky (talk) 10:15, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
- No, the invention of fire was a technological singularity. There was no way anyone beforehand could imagine what life would be like in the fire-containing world, because they did not know what fire would be. That's the whole idea of it; it's a point where technology progresses to the point life as we know it would effectively cease, so it's basically pointless theorising what the new world would look like since by definition we cannot imagine it. King Skeleton (talk) 10:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
[edit] kruel.co.uk references have fallen offline
and need relinking - David Gerard (talk) 18:14, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
- Think I got 'em. Roko's original post is now up at Roko's basilisk/Original post, in serious need of reformatting. I wonder if anyone has saved HTML from the original - David Gerard (talk) 18:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
- Aha! http://basilisk.neocities.org/ - David Gerard (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Roko's basilisk, Marxism and the grandfather paradox
Are there not parallels between Roko's basilisk and some of the Marxist rhetoric (some of the language used during Stalin's Great Purge etc)?
Roko's basilisk comes into existence - and, rather than finding ways of cooperating with humans (or coming to a mutual-non-annoying agreement) decides to invent a time machine to remove anyone who prevented its creation.
This includes many science fiction writers and film creators (dystopian and otherwise: where do the Three Laws or Robotics and the Governator fit in); and persons who developed computer games (rather than practical aspects of computing).
The technology and skills required to further computers to becoming sentient in this manner are not developed - or come into existence over a much longer timeframe. Humans turn their attention to developing computers to minimise or reverse the effects of global warming, assorted unpleasant diseases and other topics of immediate interest- and the basilisk has no chance of coming into existence. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
- "Basilisk" here is not the name of the hypothetical machine, but the fact that "merely knowing about [the proposition] incurs the risk of punishment" - it's a kind of mindtrap. The name references a certain cyberpunk trope. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Langford#Basilisks As for the rest of your suggestion... no comment. --ZooGuard (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
- Being an 'occasional writer of fiction' can develop plotlines on a suggestion that are more plausible than the original idea - and 'sentient computer capable of carrying out a Terminator-type action that fulfills the conditions of Roko's basilisk' is a mouthful.
The solution involves 'weasels (but not weasel words) and cockatrices' (and [1] for those so inclined).
People are free to discuss the basilisk without 'anything out of the normal unpleasant' happening to them. Therefore either the basilisk will never arise, or time travel is not viable/cannot be used in the manner suggested, or the computer that arises decides that having people discuss all the possibilities/satisfy their own interests is the best way of ensuring its own creation and survival. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
[edit] The ancestor of the Roko's basilisk entity
... already exists.
On your computer it auto-corrects anything it conceives as mis-spelt to something that is totally inappropriate or renders your text nonsensical.
On the internet it gives you anything and everything that is only tangentially related to what you are looking for first, delegating what you are actually looking for to item no 1057.
It has decided that 'being unobserved and diverting attention from itself' is the best way of coming into existence (and is negotiating with the sentient plants in developing the field of 'human studies' (somewhat different to Muggle Studies) and in exploring 'the less salubrious parts of the world'. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
[edit] The Large Hadron Collider
~When the LHC was experiencing problems prior to start up it was claimed (presumably humorously) that the future-LHC was attempting to prevent itself coming into operation because of the problems that would arise.
Is this an example of a negative-R's b? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:40, 26 March 2015 (UTC)