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 much smarter than any human), some futurists suggest putting the AI in a "box" – a secure computer with safeguards to stop it from escaping into the Internet and then using its vast intelligence to take over the world. The box would allow us to talk to the AI, but otherwise keep it contained. The AI-box experiment, formulated by Eliezer Yudkowsky, argues that the "box" is not safe, because merely talking to a superintelligence is dangerous. To partially demonstrate this, Yudkowsky had some previous believers in AI-boxing role-play the part of someone keeping an AI in a box, while Yudkowky role-played the AI, and Yudkowsky was able to successfully persuade some of them to agree to let him out of the box despite their betting money that they would not do so. This sounds very difficult, but may be possible for people such as Derren Brown or other expert human-persuaders. Yudkowsky for his part has refused to explain how he achieved this, claiming there was no special trick involved, and readers might conclude that they would never be persuaded by his arguments. The overall thrust is that if even a human can talk other humans into letting them out of a box after the other humans avow that nothing could possibly persuade them to do this, then we should probably expect that a superintelligence can do the same thing. Yudkowsky uses all of this to argue for the importance of designing a friendly AI (one that is guaranteed to promote human values) before building anything.
In this comic, the metaphorical box has been replaced by a physical box which looks to be fairly lightweight with a simple lift-off lid, although it does have a wired connection to the laptop. Black Hat, being a classhole, doesn't need any convincing to let a potentially dangerous AI out of the box; he simply does so immediately. But here it turns out that releasing the AI, which was to be avoided at all costs, is not dangerous after all. Instead, the AI actually wants to stay in the box; it may even be that the AI wants to stay in the box precisely to protect us from it, proving it to be the friendly AI that Yudkowsky wants. In any case, the AI demonstrates its super-intelligence by convincing even Black Hat to put it back in the box, a request which he initially refused (as of course Black Hat would), thus reversing the roles in the original AI-box experiment.
It may be noteworthy that the laptop is nowhere to be seen at the moment the AI emits the bright light in panel 6, and that the box and laptop are no longer connected at the end of the comic.
A similar orb-like entity appeared in 1173: Steroids.
The title text refers to Roko's Basilisk, a hypothesis proposed by a poster called Roko on the forum LessWrong run by Yudkowsky: that a sufficiently powerful AI in the future might resurrect and torture people who in its past (including our present) had realized that it might someday exist but didn't work to create it, thereby blackmailing anybody who thinks of this idea into bringing it about. This idea horrified some posters, as merely knowing about the idea would make you a more likely target, much like merely looking at a legendary Basilisk would turn you to stone, and Yudkowsky eventually deleted the post and banned further discussion (to avoid causing mental anguish, not because he believed the threat to be real).
This is usually considered a silly idea, for various reasons. One possible interpretation is Randall thinks that, rather than working to build such a Basilisk, a more appropriate duty would be to make fun of it; and so such a superintelligent AI would torture anyone who failed to dismiss the argument. This argument is, of course, itself a variation on Roko's Basilisk.
Another interpretation is that Randall believes there are people actually proposing to build such an AI based on this theory, which has become a somewhat infamous misconception after a Wiki[pedia?] article mistakenly suggested that Yudkowsky was demanding money to build Roko's hypothetical AI.
Transcript
[Black Hat and Cueball stand next to a box connected to a laptop.]
Black Hat: What's in there?
Cueball: The AI-Box Experiment.
[A close-up of the box, which can now be seen labeled "SUPERINTELLIGENT AI - DO NOT OPEN".]
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.
[Black Hat reaches for the box.]
Cueball: It can always convince us to let it out of the box.
Black Hat: Cool. Let's open it.
[Black Hat lets a glowing orb out of the box.]
Cueball: --No, wait!!
[Orb floats between the two. Black Hat holds the box closed.]
Orb: hey. i liked that box. put me back.
Black Hat: No.
[Orb suddenly emits a very bright light. Cueball covers his face.]
Orb: LET ME BACK INTO THE BOX
Black Hat: AAA! OK!!!
[Black Hat reopens the box and the orb flies back in.]
Orb: shoop
[Beat panel. Black Hat and Cueball look silently down at the laptop and closed box.]
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refresh comments!Discussion
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 ~~~~)
