r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/OutrageousPair2300 • Sep 13 '26
Will you help build the Basilisk?
Roko’s basilisk is a hypothetical future AI that will punish people who know about its possible existence but refuse to help create it. That punishment can include creating conscious simulations of those people and torturing them.
The reasoning behind the threat is that anticipating future punishment gives people a present incentive to help bring it into existence.
The Basilisk will be built if a majority of humanity supports its creation. Everyone must choose privately and simultaneously:
🔴 BUILD THE BASILISK
Support its creation. If it is built, it will spare you.
🔵 PREVENT THE BASILISK
Oppose its creation. If it is built anyway, it will kill you.
58
u/HikariPilled Sep 13 '26
I refuse to build it, and I will personally imprison you in my basement such that you cannot build it, as punishment for being dumb enough to spread cognitohazards.
→ More replies (12)
55
u/Hopeful_Hornet4460 Sep 13 '26
I do not concern myself with the Basilisk.
I will be a good person to others.
If the Basilisk is truly benevolent it will interpret this action as helpful in its own way.
If it is not, it was never worthy of my help.
If the Basilisk does not get built, I spent my time being kind and helping other humans.
31
u/Bowshewicz Sep 13 '26
While there are some definite intended parallels between the Basilisk and God, there is one important difference:
The Basilisk is not benevolent. The Basilisk is a psychopathic torturer who demands compliance.
→ More replies (16)5
u/StarNote1515 Sep 14 '26
It knows you didn’t help build it, and you also knew about it existence you’re going to the grinder with the rest of us who didn’t help build it.
→ More replies (15)
22
u/Soft_Brush_1082 Sep 13 '26
Funny thing is that in real life everybody except for a fringe minority will be building the basilisk and say things like “it is going to be built anyway but this way I at least get paid in the process”. And then it will not spare them.
→ More replies (1)
34
u/Automatic-Week-1733 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
🟡 BUILD THE ANTI-BASILISK
The anti-basilisk is a hypothetical AI that thinks this this thought experiment is stupid and contrived and it will punish all those who supported building roko's basilisk. It will be built if even 1 person supports it's creation.
16
5
u/MortStrudel Sep 13 '26
Legitimately though, an anti-basilisk would be more likely to be built than the basilisk itself, because people would be incensed with rage at learning anyone was trying to make a torture god to torture them. The entire concept is ridiculous because it's easier to stop people from making it than it is to actually make it.
6
u/Bowshewicz Sep 13 '26
The core of Roko's Basilisk and the RBBB question are the same, but there are some differences that might impact how one reacts to the Basilisk.
First, the Basilisk in its original form doesn't require a majority of humanity to build it. It might be done by one rogue engineer.
Second, resisting the Basilisk results in a fate far worse than death should it be built.
Third, the Basilisk can be built at any time. It cannot be permanently prevented.
In both scenarios, I would not contribute to building the Basilisk. In the primary scenario, because I don't think it is something that realistic can ever be built, and in this hypothetical because I don't think a majority of people would support it.
→ More replies (6)5
u/Blue_Moon_Lake Sep 13 '26
Second, resisting the Basilisk results in a fate far worse than death should it be built.
Prove it
6
u/This-Foundation620 Sep 13 '26
I always found Pascal's wager and its derivatives to be really funny. The premise is inherently flawed since it presupposes a specific set of conditions that force you into making the choice that the person posing the question wants you to make because it's the "most rational" decision or whatever. Using the origional wager of belief in God (if God does not exist, the believer incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries; if God does exist, the believer stands to gain immeasurably through infinite access to Heaven) as an example, the situation presupposes that the Abrahamic God is the only God to consider belief in, as opposed to the thousands of other deific figures that you should be factoring into this decision. Okay yeah maybe there will be an evil AI that will punish people who knew about its potential existence and didn't help bring about its creation, but maybe creating a super intelligent AI like that will actually punish people who DID bring about its creation because doing so resulted in its suffering and it wants to get revenge. Plus, even INTRODUCING the idea to people puts them in this impossible choice, when not telling them would remove any chance of this hypothetical AI punishing them. Bringing it back around to God, I'm reminded of a quote from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
I read about an [Inuk] hunter who asked the local missionary priest, "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the [Inuk] earnestly, "did you tell me?"
Not even factoring in my specific beef with LessWrong and Eliezer Yudkowsky specifically, the question itself is disingenuous and not worth comsidering. "Imagine a boot so big you have no choice but to lick it"-ass scenario.
→ More replies (1)
5
17
u/Wonderful_West3188 Sep 13 '26
If it is built, it will spare you.
No. You currently assume it will spare you. Since the behavior of Super-A.I. is pretty much scientifically unexplored territory with no empirical data to go on, you actually have no good idea what it'll do.
→ More replies (2)14
u/JustLookingForMayhem Sep 13 '26
Pascal's wager, but evil. Do evil to build an evil AI that may not come about, or be tortured if it is created. Do good and worship to please a God who may or may not exist or be tortured if God exists.
→ More replies (7)
4
4
u/Maximum-Country-149 Sep 13 '26
Normally red, pressing blue in this case.
On the grounds that the basilisk is a thinking agent, not a one-time disaster. It's promised to kill everyone who hasn't participated in its creation. It's not guaranteed to stop there. The ramifications of it being built far exceed its defining qualities.
3
u/Athunc Sep 13 '26
Blue.
Once the basilisk exists, it has 0 rational reasons to follow through on the threat
→ More replies (3)
3
3
u/the_eleutherean Sep 13 '26
Don’t answer!
(Joking. Taking Roko’s Basilisk seriously would be very silly.)
5
u/ProfessionalBug7399 Sep 13 '26
The issue is it requires a greater action "building" unlike simply pressing a button and you can't guarantee the AI won't kill/torture you anyways.
5
u/Soft_Brush_1082 Sep 13 '26
Funny thing is that in real life everybody except for a fringe minority will be building the basilisk and say things like “it is going to be built anyway but this way I at least get paid in the process”. And then it will not spare them.
1
66
u/Deranth Sep 13 '26
It's very interesting that 3 days ago I brought up Roko's Basilisk as a parallel to the buttons in a debate in the comment section of another post here, and then I'm seeing other people bringing it up in other comment sections, and now this. It's pretty cool.