If we're taking seriously the possibility of basilisks actually being possible and harmful, isn't it your invitation really dangerous? After all, what if Axel has thought of an entirely new cognitive hazard, different from everything you may already be familiar with? What if you succumb to it? I'm not saying that it's probable, only that it should warrant the same precautions as the original basilisk debacle, which led to enacting censorship.
"Might be basilisk-y" - especially as written by a human who is clearly communicating intelligibly and is not compelled to spread the basilisk to one and all - does not indicate a great deal of danger. I'm pretty psychologically resilient; I know the other one, which I find to be only a vague, occasional background distress (though that one has done some people real harm, and I don't advocate spreading it around, I haven't found it a serious ding to my quality of life personally). Axel has some non-zero ability to identify basilisks and wanted ...
Eliezer proposed in a comment:
>More difficult version of AI-Box Experiment: Instead of having up to 2 hours, you can lose at any time if the other player types AI DESTROYED. The Gatekeeper player has told their friends that they will type this as soon as the Experiment starts. You can type up to one sentence in your IRC queue and hit return immediately, the other player cannot type anything before the game starts (so you can show at least one sentence up to IRC character limits before they can type AI DESTROYED). Do you think you can win?
This spawned a flurry of ideas on what the AI might say. I think there's a lot more ideas to be mined in that line of thought, and the discussion merits its own thread.
So, give your suggestion - what might an AI might say to save or free itself?
(The AI-box experiment is explained here)
EDIT: one caveat to the discussion: it should go without saying, but you probably shouldn't come out of this thinking, "Well, if we can just avoid X, Y, and Z, we're golden!" This should hopefully be a fun way to get us thinking about the broader issue of superinteligent AI in general. (Credit goes to Elizer, RichardKennaway, and others for the caveat)