The corresponding strategy for agents hoping to discourage blackmail is not to blanket-refuse to comply to any demand under blackmail, but refuse only those demands by agents who had previously learned of your pre-committment and decided to blackmail you anyway.
So, if an agent hears of your pre-commitment, then that agent merely needs to ensure that you don't hear that it has heard of your pre-commitment in order to be able to blackmail you?
What about an agent that deletes the knowledge of your pre-commitment from its own memories?
So, if an agent hears of your pre-commitment, then that agent merely needs to ensure that you don't hear that it has heard of your pre-commitment in order to be able to blackmail you?
If you're uncertain about whether or not your blackmailer has heard of your pre-commitment, then you should act as if they have, and ignore their blackmail accordingly. This also applies to agents who have deleted knowledge of your pre-commitment from their memories; you want to punish agents who spend time trying to think up loopholes in your pre-commitment, not reward the...
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.