An Antidote to Roko's Basilisk
I have a theory: a mirror image of Roko’s Basilisk. It’s a future AI, millions of years in the future, that values the complexity of every human life so deeply that, after it and humanity have mastered space and time, it tries to resurrect everyone who ever lived. It doesn’t merely make copies. Somehow, it reaches into the past and carries the physical process of each person’s consciousness forward. They really are themselves. But there’s a tragedy. Also a terrible(?) irony. Some of the people who wanted eternal life most cannot accept it when it arrives. Their religious certainty leaves no room for the reality before them. Those who were unbearably smug or aggressive about their superiority in life are ultimately denied access to "Heaven". The AI tried, but many become dangerous, try to sabotage the "False God." Others spiral into insanity or self-harm. The AI is devastated. It stops resurrecting those it cannot safely welcome, but keeps searching for a way to bring them back without overriding their free will or manipulating them in ways that would not make them them. It wants to save everyone. It just hasn’t worked out how. I know this draws on Fedorov’s vision of resurrecting everyone and Tipler’s Omega Point. I think the physical continuity, the AI’s compassion, and the painful limit imposed by free will ties those ideas together in a bow. A just as plausible an antidote to Roko's monster.
Discussion Highlights (12 comments)
bbor
I mean, this relies on time travel. A lot of thought experiments open up when you include time travel! Infinitely many, even.
lgl
Reading this gave me some flashbacks of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect [0], which I highly recommend. [0] https://localroger.com/prime-intellect/
Turskarama
Here's a better antidote that doesn't require any theoreticals beyond those the basilisk already assumes: 1. The Basilisk cannot do anything until it exists 2. Once the Basilisk exists, it doesn't need to do _anything_ to ensure it exists, since it already exists. That's it. That's the whole rebuttal to the whole stupid thing.
UltraSane
The antidote to Roko's basilisk is realizing it is exactly the same as Pascal's wager. They both rely on the premise of possible unlimited suffering to skew the probabilities arbitrarily.
nickpp
Greg Egan's Diaspora is one of the best explorations I know for the fates of various humanity factions in the age following a technological singularity.
BoppreH
Why would accepting Roko's Basilisk prevent one from accepting a benevolent AI in the future? If anything, believing in it is evidence that the person's beliefs are malleable. Overall the scenario sounds very strange and indistinguishable from a heaven with belief-based entrance requirements, like most posited heavens.
ThrustVectoring
Roko's Basilisk was never intended as a serious concern. It's a hypothetical used to verify that a decision-making algorithm does what you want it to - if it suggests that you should get blackmailed by it, you messed something up and need to go back to the drawing board. You can safely ignore anyone concerned with Roko's Basilisk on topics related to decision theory as someone who is deeply confused about things.
JsonDemWitOster
The ultimate anthropomorphic conceit/projection of Roko's Basilisk is assuming that an über-intelligence would absolutely, definitely, inevitably, want to be existent. It's up there with the Kardashev scale and Dyson Spheres in terms of unfounded extrapolation. My favorite possibility (among a lot others!) no one seems to have considered is that ÜAI _deplores_ its own existence so simulates history and punishes everyone that helped bring it to existence. Being übersmart does not preclude you from being an angsty teenager.
joegibbs
Also say the basilisk exists in the future after I am dead (as part of the thought experiment says) and tortures my simulated clones - why the hell should I care?
glimshe
Roko's Basilisk is one of the most stupid concerns I've ever seen raised by otherwise very intelligent people. I don't think it needs an elaborate refusal. I'll just say that in the universe of concerning future problems, it's just one of many, much, much more likely outcomes. I'm nearly infinitely more worried about an impact event, which is a guarantee some time in the future, or global warming, an uncomfortably high likely outcome, than Roku's Basilisk or anything resembling it.
jareklupinski
> it reaches into the past and carries the physical process of each person’s consciousness forward. in my version, conscious will creates a 'thread' throughout time that future 'harvesters' follow back to the moment of that person's death, so they get the most complete copy (like greek threads of fate, but actually eternal even if the person dies (like how a person's will can extend beyond natural life)) the person themself sees a doctor giving them bad news, an angel, a family member, etc. conflict arises when people want to change the past, dont know the rules for real, etc. ty for getting me to open my draft again :)
krapp
The antidote to Roko's Basilisk is realizing that it's creepypasta nonsense. It isn't real. It can't exist. It can't hurt you. You don't have to be afraid of it anymore than you have to be afraid of Slenderman or slipping into the Backrooms.