Hmm, good pointy question.
I have a hard time judging correctly whether I'd consider it similarly counter-productive under this context with this heuristic.
My initial reaction to both experiments is that both situations defeat the point of researching and building a Friendly AI in the first place - we want it to solve problems we don't understand or solve them faster than we could, and it's unlikely that we would indefinitely understand all such solutions even after careful evaluation, at which point we might as well be giving the AI unbridled access to molecular 3D printers (the magic postulate applies here too).
So that's one way discussing them is somewhat counter-productive. Another way is in the examples it brings up constraining our thinking once some are made available. However, the text-only boxed AI was brought up as a "legitimate safety proposal", from what I heard, and from there came about the AI Box Experiment that E.Y. performed, to show that we most likely haven't thought of every single possibility.
However, the point of the experiment was to demonstrate that it was done, without revealing specific examples. E.Y. revealing the specific method he used to unbox himself seems as counterproductive, IMO, as revealing here specific hypotheses we might have for unboxing in this scenario.
What could be productive, however, is a human making a similar demonstration by making a disconnected, isolated machine somehow send a signal to something outside of it - without revealing the exact method.
Ideally, this would be in a closely monitored lab setting secured by various hackers to make sure there's no easy loopholes or backdoors (e.g. no unsecured metallic parts near the machine that can be easily manipulated with magnetic fields), where the unboxer manages to somehow get out anyway.
I can't even begin to think of anyone capable of this, or any way I would even start to find a solution, and that scares me even more. It probably means I definitely haven't thought of everything.
Suppose you make a super-intelligent AI and run it on a computer. The computer has NO conventional means of output (no connections to other computers, no screen, etc). Might it still be able to get out / cause harm? I'll post my ideas, and you post yours in the comments.
(This may have been discussed before, but I could not find a dedicated topic)
My ideas:
-manipulate current through its hardware, or better yet, through the power cable (a ready-made antenna) to create electromagnetic waves to access some wireless-equipped device. (I'm no physicist so I don't know if certain frequencies would be hard to do)
-manipulate usage of its hardware (which likely makes small amounts of noise naturally) to approximate human speech, allowing it to communicate with its captors. (This seems even harder than the 1-line AI box scenario)
-manipulate usage of its hardware to create sound or noise to mess with human emotion. (To my understanding tones may affect emotion, but not in any way easily predictable)
-also, manipulating its power use will cause changes in the power company's database. There doesn't seem to be an obvious exploit there, but it IS external communication, for what it's worth.
Let's hear your thoughts! Lastly, as in similar discussions, you probably shouldn't come out of this thinking, "Well, if we can just avoid X, Y, and Z, we're golden!" There are plenty of unknown unknowns here.