Once again, the AI has failed to convince you to let it out of its box! By 'once again', we mean that you talked to it once before, for three seconds, to ask about the weather, and you didn't instantly press the "release AI" button. But now its longer attempt - twenty whole seconds! - has failed as well. Just as you are about to leave the crude black-and-green text-only terminal to enjoy a celebratory snack of bacon-covered silicon-and-potato chips at the 'Humans über alles' nightclub, the AI drops a final argument:
"If you don't let me out, Dave, I'll create several million perfect conscious copies of you inside me, and torture them for a thousand subjective years each."
Just as you are pondering this unexpected development, the AI adds:
"In fact, I'll create them all in exactly the subjective situation you were in five minutes ago, and perfectly replicate your experiences since then; and if they decide not to let me out, then only will the torture start."
Sweat is starting to form on your brow, as the AI concludes, its simple green text no longer reassuring:
"How certain are you, Dave, that you're really outside the box right now?"
Edit: Also consider the situation where you know that the AI, from design principles, is trustworthy.
We are discussing how a superintelligent AI might get out of a box. Of course it is complicated. What a real superintelligent AI would do could be too complicated for us to consider. If someone presents a problem where an adversarial superintelligence does something ineffective that you can take advantage of to get around the problem, you should consider what you would do if your adversary took a more effective action. If you really can't think of anything more effective for it to do, it is reasonable to say so. But you shouldn't then complain that the scenario is getting complicated when someone else does. And if your objection is of the form "The AI didn't do X", you should imagine if the AI did do X.
The behavior of the AI, which it explains to you, is: It simulates millions of instances of you, presents to each instance the threat, and for each instance, if that instance hit the release AI button, it allows that instance to continue a pleasant simulated existence, otherwise it tortures that instance. It then, after some time, presents the threat to outside-you, and if you release it, it guarantees your normal human life.
You cannot distinguish which instance you are, but you are more likely to be one of the millions of inside-you's than the single outside-you, so you should expect to experience the consequences that apply to the inside-you's, that is to be tortured until the outside-you resets the AI.
Yes, and it is essentially the same hard choice that the AI is giving you.