A2: Basilisk

Hansen
Fall 2015

Synopsis: Generic answers to the Basilisk argument. The basilisk is a k that says we could all
be living in a simulation of a super computer or that a futuristic supercomputer could project
backwards to ensure that it exists. Teams will often posit that voting against the basilisk would
cause the judge to undergo terrible psychological torment.
A great explanation of Rokos Basilisk and an in depth explanation of some of our arguments:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk

A really smart dude justifies why is okay to shutdown conversations about the
basilisk(Yudkowsys top two comments):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2cm2eg/rokos_basilisk/

1 The Basilisk mirrors Pascal's wager which justifies awful treatment of people
-Pascal's wager is a common justification for mistreatment of women, black folks, gay folks or
"sinners."

-the basilisk then becomes an infinitely regressive justification. A team could claim anything
helps the basilisk and say that interrogating it will cause suffering -- it mirrors Inquisitional
threats against sinners.

-Justifies an awful decision making paradigm. Rather than interrogating issues, morals or ideas,
they are classified in a binary where they either help or harm the basilisk. This destroys our
ability to critically think and make us complacent with global atrocities because the basilisk has
set things up that way.

2 Chained conditions are less probable

-The assumptions the basilisk requires to work:
1 that you can meaningfully model a superintelligence in your human brain (remembering that
this is comparable to an ant modelling a human brain and that the probability of this particular AI
(and it's a very particular AI) ever coming into existence is non-negligible — say, greater than
10x1^30 to 1 against
2 that said AI would be able to deduce and simulate a very close copy of you
3 that said AI has no better use for particular resources than to torture a simulation it created
itself
4 and in addition, feels that punishing a simulation of you is even worth doing, considering that it
still exists and punishing the simulation would not affect you.
that torturing the copy should feel the same to you as torturing the you that's here right now
5 that timeless decision theory is so obviously true that any Friendly superintelligence would
immediately deduce and adopt it, as it would a correct theory in physics
6 that despite having been constructed specifically to solve particular weird edge cases, TDT is
a good guide to normal decisions
7 that acausal trade is even a meaningful concept
8 that all this is worth thinking about even if it occurs in a universe totally disconnected from this
one.

-each link in the chain makes it less likely while making the story sound more compelling -- thus
the paradox of thought experiments.

3 Reject negligible probabilities as zero

-0 is not a probability. Basic statistics says that the probability of all potential outcomes should
add up to one. Humans are very bad at dealing with impossible because of a phenomena
known as "favoring the hypothesis." This would cause us to add up all of the "but you can't
disprove it" ideas with actual quantitative probability and end up with a total number of potential
outcomes that equals more than one. This means it's just as likely and absurd that an opposing
AI could exist and counter EVERTHING done by the basilisk. How likely are any of these
scenarios? Not likely enough to consider.

4 Ignore the blackmail

-Acausal blackmail would be pointless for the basilisk if we don't view it as threatening. If you
ignore the blackmail for your decision then it's not useful for the basilisk to apply the blackmail to
you, so it won't. We create a self-fulfilling prophecy that solves the impacts of the basilisk.

5 Decision theories aren't binding

-Even if a supercomputer can predict my behavior, they haven't proved the Humean "secret
springs" that connect by behavior to the prediction of the basilisk. It's just as likely that my
behavior causes the results of the simulation, meaning we are safe.

6 Not even quantum physics provides a method for backwards projection

-Quantum entanglement states that time is only irrelevant after the point in time in which two
atoms are entangled, meaning if we ever figure it out, we can only communicate back to the
point we figured out quantum entanglement, not before.

7 The basilisk is a performance of whiteness, which allows you to ignore the suffering of
others
-Your performance is the need to invent something so far fetched that oppresses you because
of white (male? LnC BP read this last year) privilege and how it insulates you from
conversations about race and oppression. You just get to invent some sort of oppression that is
imaginary and you say outweighs everything else so that you can avoid conversations on things
that would force you to question your privilege.

-This justifies the perpetuation of oppression against other communities because you give
yourself a justification to ignore their suffering.

8 The basilisk is a form of delusional misidentification syndrome that discourages people

from seeking help for mental health
-DMS is a category of mental health issues where an individual is paranoid about the world
being out to get them, existing in a replication, etc. the problem is that like many mental health
concerns, they can become a self fulfilling prophecy, eg the fear of the pain from the basilisk
may cause people to actual perceive experiencing pain. This is uniquely bad with the basilisk
because people would be unwilling to communicate concerns with a mental health expert for
fear of affecting the expert as well or because they think they have a better understanding of the
world than the mental health expert.

-This means rejecting the basilisk is essential to prevent mental paranoia and to encourage
people to talk to mental professionals as opposed to communication and poli sci students about
mental health concerns.

(If aff) The permutation solves all offense, Newcomb's paradox and Timeless Decision
Theory prove
-A central tenet to the proof for TDT is that the subject has the ability to simultaneously choose
option a and option b. In the proof for the basilisk, Roko argues that choosing a and b would
insulate one from the suffering

-Also, if the plan is a good idea and insulates the world from destruction, the basilisk would
approve because it then increases the propensity for the basilisk to exist. This also increases
solvency of the aff because the basilisk would help the implantation of the aff through whatever
mechanisms they identify.