gjm comments on xkcd on the AI box experiment - Less Wrong Discussion
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I am no PR specialist, but I think relevant folks should agree on a simple, sensible message accessible to non-experts, and then just hammer that same message relentlessly. So, e.g. why mention "Newcomb-like problems?" Like 10 people in the world know what you really mean. For example:
(a) The original thing was an overreaction,
(b) It is a sensible social norm to remove triggering stimuli, and Roko's basilisk was an anxiety trigger for some people,
(c) In fact, there is an entire area of decision theory involving counterfactual copies, blackmail, etc. behind the thought experiment, just as there is quantum mechanics behind Schrodinger's cat. Once you are done sniggering about those weirdos with a half-alive half-dead cat, you might want to look into serious work done there.
What you want to fight with the message is the perception that you are a weirdo cult/religion. I am very sympathetic to what is happening here, but this is, to use the local language, "a Slytherin problem," not "a Ravenclaw problem."
I expect in 10 years if/when MIRI gets a ton of real published work under its belt, this is going to go away, or at least morph into "eccentric academics being eccentric."
p.s. This should be obvious: don't lie on the internet.
Yes.
Further: If you search for "lesswrong roko basilisk" the top result is the RationalWiki article (at least, for me on Google right now) and nowhere on the first page is there anything with any input from Eliezer or (so far as such a thing exists) the LW community.
There should be a clear, matter-of-fact article on (let's say) the LessWrong wiki, preferably authored by Eliezer (but also preferably taking something more like the tone Ilya proposes than most of Eliezer's comments on the issue) to which people curious about the affair can be pointed.
(Why haven't I made one, if I think this? Because I suspect opinions on this point are strongly divided and it would be sad for there to be such an article but for its history to be full of deletions and reversions and infighting. I think that would be less likely to happen if the page were made by someone of high LW-status who's generally been on Team Shut Up About The Basilisk Already.)