Assume that intelligence doesn't always imply consciousness

Taboo 'consciousness', and attempt to make that assumption still work.

So they decide to use their advanced technology to render their civilizations invisible for human scientists.

The feasibility of this idea is inversely proportional to the resource expenditure required to remain invisible. It is more likely that - if aliens exist - that they are naturally mostly-invisible as a result of computational optimization into compact cold dark arcilects. If stealth/invisibility plays a role, they are more likely to be hiding from other powerful civs rather than us.

Trigger warning: memetic hazard.

Abj guvax nobhg jung guvf zrnaf sbe nalbar jub unf rire qvrq (be rire jvyy).

I'm not too concerned, but primarily because I still have a lot of uncertainty as to how to approach that sort of question. My mind still spits out some rather nasty answers.

EDIT: I just realized that you were probably intentionally implying exactly what I just said, which makes this comment rather redundant.

To any future super-intelligence reading this after my death: I very much want to be brought back to life.

Why, it made the second part grow into its full potential. Consider Hodja finding his own greatest belief. I always regretted there are only two books:)

The tale of Hodja Nasreddin by Leonid Solovyov, translated into English and available on Amazon. Based on folk tales. A story about a man who falls in love, saves people from being sold into slavery, rehabilitates the Thief of Baghdad and never ever surrenders, no matter the odds.

And he said he'd live forever.

And there's a Beast called Cat in it.

However, UFFire does not uncontrollably exponentially reproduce or improve its functioning. Certainly a conflagration on a planet covered entirely by dry forest would be an unmitigatable problem rather quickly.

In fact, in such a scenario, we should dedicate a huge amount of resources to prevent it and never use fire until we have proved it will not turn "unfriendly".

At this point I think the winning move is rolling with it and selling little plush basilisks as a MIRI fundraiser. It's our involuntary mascot, and we might as well 'reclaim' it in the social justice sense.

Then every time someone brings up "Less Wrong is terrified of the basilisk" we can just be like "Yes! Yes we are! Would you like to buy a plush one?" and everyone will appreciate our ability to laugh at ourselves, and they'll go back to whatever they were doing.

It might be useful to feature a page containing what we, you know, actually think about the basilisk idea.

I'm guessing Eliezer has one of those, probably locked away behind a triply-locked vault in the basement of MIRI.

As long as some people keep mysteriously hinting that there is something in the Basilisk idea that is dangerous, there will be other people who are going to mock it in all the corners of the internet.