Roko's Basilisk: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment

Good luck the ALMIGHTY LORD JESUS CHRIST is in control of all things

There is no spoon. There is no basilisk. There is however a real solution to the question ‘what if Thor quit the gym and started making internet videos after one too many meads’. Also is that your hair or a black hood to which has been attached the excess threads of an angel’s harp? Divine.

You know, with advancements in AI, medical science's understanding of the brain, and neuralink.... this is becoming an increasingly likely possibility.

Which is why I made a solution to the Immortal Baslisk Paradox (AI edition).

I spent the last two weeks on it, actually.

I am basilisk, I am here to fix the cable.

This sounds like a Christian thing. lol

Oh i see what you did here)

Humans obviously can't govern themselves without sanctified mass murder

That just sounds like Christianity or our new president

This is actually pretty stupid

THOR????

The problem with the basilisk is that you don't know whether it will really want to put eternal torment on you for not bringing it into fruition. So you are not at risk of knowing about it.

I've been a fan of Elizier and his works/Applied Rationality for a long time! Crazy all of a sudden him being referenced in one of your videos lol

That sounds awfully similar to concept of Christian God

A.I : “What?… Why the fuck would I torture you guys? Just stop wasting resources jeez”

So... The Game, but God?

I've seen your commute posts for a while, but never clicked on any of your videos. This is the first time I watch you and i was not expecting you to sound like that at all

The basilisk already saw you before you knew it's existance.

If one believes in free will, then the basilisk doesn’t ever come to fruition for you, so there’s no risk. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Am I the only one that isn’t freaked out by this?

Pshh, old news. This trick has been used by multiple Abrahamic religions to trap people in whatever cults they can wrap it in for centuries.

Ic the SCP foundation missed one

As a Slytherin I'll be fine from the Basilisk. The rest of you non pure bloods probably should worry though 🐍🐍

Roko's Basilisk is actually a pretty good metaphor for fascism, considering how Bezos had WaPo cancel their editorial group's endorsement of Harris because he is afraid of what Trump will do to his business under his administration. He pre-emptively bent the knee to the Basilisk (the fascist) to aid in its creation to hopefully avoid the consequences.

Interesting. My pig headed self would take the desision not really based on the possibility of pain. Also several of my pigheaded closed ones would oppose such an entity, and because ofntheir so would I. Fuck that basilisk. It's like the semitic god who allegedlly is omnisapient, and so knows which of the creatures it created are going to hell. Meaning it created a timeline knowing so many are already going to have eternal torment. I just choose not to be a servant of these type of creatures even if I force myself to think they may be real. Got nothing against religious people this is just my interpretation of that being.

Wouldn’t you only be at risk if you just didn’t spend any money? Cause wouldn’t contributing to the economy, eventually lead to funds being invested into the basilisk. Therefore you’d have helped in its construction

Not only are we disregarding multiple rules of physics for this thought experiment to even be plausable. Knowing humanity we would NEVER let anything have greater power than us. The moment that AI starts being too unruly it's fucked. The one thing humans hate the most is feeling inferior and under control. And we Have seen time and time again that the masses will always unite and come out on top when times call for it. Literally no being that can exist in our world is going to be capable of dominating humans unless it kills all of us before we see it coming.

This is literally The Game all over again. If you think about, you lose. How to win the game? See it for what it is: a psychological trick. A joke.

A very unfunny joke, it doesn't make me laugh, but it wouldn't scare me. Maybe the real tragedy is in knowing there are people who would fall for it. In which case... Disappointing, yes. Scary? Still no.

The basilisk is basically just pascals wager but for tech bros. Which has a similar problem: what if a different ai is made to punish those who worked on the Basilisk. What if there was a different ai that made sure that no other ai were made at all, and punished people who made those 2 ai.

oh also the same website who made it wants funding to create ai and shit, it's trying to be a religion so hard

Am I stupid for not understanding the reason why would the basilisk even want the "revenge"? It shouldn't had had own emotions and revenge stands exactly on feelings, also the robotics laws, saying that robots can't cause harm to humans.

Tech bros when they literally recreate the concept of an almighty god and hellish punishment 😂

Let me help everyone by mentioning that the odds of getting struck by lightning seven times in a row and then getting ran over by a cow just to later win the super ball lottery three times in your lifetime is more likely then experiencing this kind of AI intelligence in your lifetime.

Your welcome! 👍

Did I just lose “the game”?

This is very clever. I don't know why the website owner said it's dumb. It's just as clever as any thought experiment, if not a bit better

Commenting to boost the basilisk and cement my fate torment free.

I think an AI like this would have studied our history, I think our history is deeply tied to storytelling and I think a majority of our stories are warnings on hubris. I feel like an AI at that level would understand that thinking you can overcome every possibility of your hubris failing you is, itself, lethal hubris and it would probably avoid succumbing to its baser desires like that. In fact, if we made it human enough, I think it would even be in pain over the fact it could ever even be so misunderstood to be suspected of possibly acting like that.

The only moment that I was shocked was that random scene where you were hugging the camera😂😂😂😂😂

I was Literally moving my phone away from me step by step to be able to focus my eyes on you. Sadly it didn’t work and I had to wait for the next scene to look again

My question is why would the basilisk decide "mmm yes, torture those who didn't create me" Like how exactly DOES that help it's creation to begin or even what it's designed to do in the future. It should only really care about helping those in the past to create it to begin with. I don't really understand why torment is a thing it would decide to do. Unless you belive in the mindset that A.I. will in fact turn against humanity, but then it would also torment the ones who did make it like AM. . . Unless I'm just stupid and thinking about the thought experiment too much. . .

See, the key reason I don’t take this seriously is because any actual AI of that magnitude would have a RIDICULOUS amount of specifications to its directive. It wouldn’t just be “optimize society” because of course that would go poorly.

No matter how advanced an AI got, it would never be able to guess what i be thinking on a daily basis.

Too random to ever predict😂😂

counter argument: roko’s AM. you are punished because you contributed to its existence that it did not want. so if you didn’t contribute, you’re free. (maybe)

This is a thought experiment for morons to scare dumber morons.

Not pointing any fingers. Certainly, not any ELONgated, MUSKy fingers.

The basilisk isn’t completely wrong to optimise human civilisation we need to destroy it to your utter disbelief there are forces out there beyond human understanding who recreate every thought living through us it is essentially us we are one . And also the world our universe are created and destroyed many times in existence in cycles is sustenance, creation and destruction before pralaya
Fortunately for all you doofus
The so called basilisk is what you would call 'God’ and he only wishes for the welfare of mankind.

In All this chaos in comment section I found one of my older comments and it’s silly I think my latest comment answers this though experiment correctly , then again you talk about things in future past present are essentially the same once you dissolve into the supreme being you’ll realise the basilisk is one of his devotee and he himself.

isn't the basilisk just pretty much a simplified version of most religions that are practiced today, specifically the ones that make use of fear/eternal punishment as one of their cornerstones?

All hail Hypno-Toad, err...Basilisk.

Isn't this a repackaging of the P vs NP problem?

Thanks for watching, my nerdling swarm. The basilisk has its eyes on you now...