Comments by "zenith parsec" (@zenithparsec) on "How to Defeat Roko's Basilisk" video.

  1. I've been sick, so I only saw this video today. But unfortunately, Roko's Basilisk doesn't need to do anything resource intensive to cause infinite harm. If you haven't already, you might enjoy reading Greg Egan's "Permutation City";l it describes a way to get free* and infinite computation. Because the Basilisk doesn't need you to ever communicate with anyone to experience its punishment, it could use a similar method: run the first step of a deterministic algorithm, such that every step afterwards is determined completely by the initial conditions. In the same way that trigonometric functions are defined for all in domain inputs, a simulation of you could be defined and subjectively could experience an infinite number of steps. Alternatively, imagine being frozen while experiencing whatever they want for one instant. If you never experience another thing, is that subjectively like experiencing that one moment forever? Your defeat doesn't work if enough people believe it won't and succeed. As you said, we don't know anything about how a super-intelligent AI will behave, so using the Nash equilibrium argument is no help. But luckily for you, you are doing as much as you can to bring it about, so you'll probably be spared. ;] And um, you already gave me a reason not to worry about the potential of pandemics: the are a lot of other people worrying about it, so I can go back to working on my video game. It also has a basilisk, but while it's technological, it's closer to the mythical kind. (And who doesn't want to live forever? Thanks Roko's Basilisk! ) [* before you think this is crazy, it's not my idea. It would not only ne free but also possibly "natural" and automatic. If there exists a mapping of anything to the computation, it's already happening. And if it's possible to map your mind into a computer simulation, then there are infinitely many of you with subjective experiences in every possible universe. Considering you can only experience what doesn't kill you, this is also kind of like a many-worlds "Quantum Immortality", where you experience subjectively immortal,, but... well, if you read this book you'll probably get dozens of new content ideas. And he has some other good ones which you'd probably also enjoy. ]
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