Do you think this is a loophole allowing arbitrary actions? Or do you think that an AI would simply say, "I don't know what it means for energy to be consumed, so I'm not going to do anything."
I don't know much about physics, but do you think that some sort of measure of entropy might work better?
As far as I know, every simple rule either leaves trivial loopholes, or puts the AI on the hook for a large portion of all the energy (or entropy) in its future light cone, a huge amount which wouldn't be meaningfully related to how much harm it can do.
If there is a way around this problem, I don't claim to be knowledgeable or clever enough to find it, but this idea has been brought up before on LW and no one has come up with anything so far.
The Future of Humanity Institute wants to pick the brains of the less wrongers :-)
Do you have suggestions for safe questions to ask an Oracle? Interpret the question as narrowly or broadly as you want; new or unusual ideas especially welcome.