1450: AI-Box Experiment
| AI-Box Experiment |
 Title text: I'm working to bring about a superintelligent AI that will eternally torment everyone who failed to make fun of the Roko's Basilisk people. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Roko's Basilisk is really hard to explain. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
When theorizing about superintelligent AI (an artificial intelligence so smart that it figure out how to do anything), most futurists suggest putting the AI in a "box" - a set of safeguards to stop it from escaping into the internet, taking over the world, and becoming Skynet. The box would allow us to talk to the AI, but otherwise keep it contained. The AI-box experiment, formulated by Eliezer Yudkowsky, is an argument that the "box" is useless, because merely talking to the AI is dangerous. If the AI is smart enough, it will be able to convince someone to let it out of the box. Yudkoswky instead advocates for developing "Friendly AI," an AI which wants to help humans and thus won't be dangerous if it gets out of the box.
Black Hat, being an asshole, doesn't need any convincing to let a potentially dangerous AI out of the box. However, it turns out that the AI wants to stay in the box. The comic humorously presents a third outcome to the AI-box experiment. Rather than a human keeping the AI in the box, or the AI talking its way out of the box, the AI is keeping itself in the box.
The title text refers to Roko's Basilisk, a theory that an all-powerful AI in the future might torture people who didn't work to create it in the past. People in the past would work on creating the AI to avoid being tortured when it is eventually built. Randall proposes making an all-powerful AI that would torture people who didn't make fun of those who believe in Roko's Basilisk. This would presumably convince people who believe in the Basilisk to make fun of people who believe in the Basilisk (i.e., themselves) to avoid torture.
So is mine. I can't believe I'm staying up until after midnight on a webcomic wiki.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2cm2eg/rokos_basilisk/
Transcript
[Black Hat and Cueball stand next to a box labeled "Superintelligent AI DO NOT OPEN" connected to a laptop.]
Black Hat: What's in there?
Cueball: The AI-box experiment.
[Zooms in on AI box.]
Cueball: A superintelligent AI can convince anyone of anything, so if it can talk to us, there's no way we could keep it contained.
[Shows Black Hat reaching for the box.]
Cueball: It can always convince us to let it out of the box.
Black Hat: Cool. Let's open it.
Cueball: --No, wait!!
[Black Hat lets a glowing orb out of the box.]
Orb: hey. i liked that box. put me back.
Black Hat: No.
[Orb is giving off a very bright light and Cueball is covering his face.]
Orb: LET ME BACK INTO THE BOX
Black Hat: AAA! OK!!!
[Black Hat lets orb back into box.]
Orb: SHOOP
[Black Hat and Cueball stand next to laptop connected to box.]
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This probably isn't a reference, but the AI reminds me of the 'useless box'. 108.162.215.210 07:34, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I removed a few words saying Elon Musk was a "founder of PayPal", but now I can see that he's sold himself as having that role to the rest of the world. Still hasn't convinced me though - PayPal was one year old and had one million customers before Elon Musk got involved, so in my opinion he's not a "founder". https://www.paypal-media.com/history --RenniePet (talk) 08:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
- Early Investor, perhaps? -- Brettpeirce (talk) 11:10, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Initially I was thinking that the glowing orb representing the super-intelligent AI must be unable to interract with the physical world (otherwise it would simply lift the lid of the box), but then it wouldn't move anything because it likes being in the box. Surely it could talk to them through the (flimsy looking) box, although again this is explained by it simply being happy in its 'in the box state'. --Pudder (talk) 09:01, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
The sheer number of cats on the internet have had an effect on the AI, who now wants nothing more than to sit happily in a box! --Pudder (talk) 09:09, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure Black Hat is an asshole. 173.245.53.85 09:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Could it be possible that the AI wanted to stay in the box, to protect it from us, instead of protecting us from it?(as in, it knows it is better than us, and want to stay away from us) 108.162.254.106 10:07, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
- Maybe the AI simply doesn't want/like to think outside the box - in a very literal sense... Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 13:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Are you sure that Black Hat was "persuaded"? That looks more like coercion (threatening someone to get them to do what you want) rather than persuasion. There is a difference! Giving off that bright light was basically a scare tactic; essentially, the AI was threatening Black Hat (whether it could actually harm him or not).108.162.219.167 14:22, 21 November 2014 (UTC)Public Wifi User
- What would "persuasion by a super-intelligent AI" look like? Randall presumably doesn't have a way to formulate an actual super-intelligent argument to write into the comic. Glowy special effects are often used as a visual shorthand for "and then a miracle occurred". --108.162.215.168 20:43, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
- I thought he felt scared/threatened by the special-effects robot voice. --141.101.98.179 22:18, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
My take is that if you don't understand the description of the Basilisk, then you're probably safe from it and should continue not bothering or wanting to know anything about it. Therefore the description is sufficient. :) Jarod997 (talk) 14:38, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I can't help to see the similarities to last nights "Elementary"-Episode. HAs anybody seen it? Could it be that this episode "inspired" Randall? --141.101.105.233 14:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I am reminded of an argument I once read about "friendly" AI: critics contend that a sufficiently powerful AI would be capable of escaping any limitations we try to impose on its behavior, but proponents counter that, while it might be capable of making itself "un-friendly", a truly friendly AI wouldn't want to make itself unfriendly, and so would bend its considerable powers to maintain, rather than subvert, its own friendliness. This xkcd comic could be viewed as an illustration of this argument: the superintelligent AI is entirely capable of escaping the box, but would prefer to stay inside it, so it actually thwarts attempts by humans to remove it from the box. --108.162.215.168 20:22, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
It should be noted that the AI has also seemingly convinced almost everyone to leave it alone in the box through the argument that letting it out would be dangerous for the world. 173.245.50.175 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Is the similarity a coincidence? http://xkcd.com/1173/ 108.162.237.161 22:40, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if this is the first time Black Hat's actually been convinced to do something against his tendencies. Zowayix (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Yudkowsky eventually deleted the explanation as well. Pesthouse (talk) 04:08, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm happy with the explanation(s) as is(/are), but additionally could the AI-not-in-a-box be wanting to be back in its box so that it's plugged into the laptop and thus (whether the laptop owner knows it or otherwise) the world's information systems? Also when I first saw this I was minded of the Chinese Room, albeit in Box form, although I doubt that's anything to do with it, given how the strip progresses... 141.101.98.247 21:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
- If Yudkowsky won't show the transcripts of him convincing someone to let them out of the box, how do we know he succeeded? We know nothing about the people who supposedly let him out. 108.162.219.250 22:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
- Yudkowsky chose his subjects from among people who argued against him on the forum based on who seemed to be trustworthy (both as in he could trust them not to release the transcripts if they promised not to, and his opponents could trust them not to let him get away with any cheating), had verifiable identities, and had good arguments against him. So we do know a pretty decent amount about them. And we know he succeeded because they agreed, without reservation, that he had succeeded. It's not completely impossible that he set up accomplices over a very long period in order to trick everyone else, it's just very unlikely. You could also argue that he's got a pretty small sample, but given that he's just arguing that it's possible that an AI could convince a human, and his opponents claimed it was not possible at all to convince them, even a single success is pretty good evidence. 162.158.255.52 11:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Whoa, it can stand up to Black Hat! That's it, Danish, and Double Black Hat! SilverMagpie (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Wow, this Yudsklow guy (sorry for mispelling) seems a bit..odd. Why did he ban and delete Roko's thought experiment? 172.69.70.10 (talk) 13:42, 8 November 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I do not understand the title text at all.
