If the AI has a goal that is not inherently friendly (like a paperclip maximizer), then it will always be a better idea for the AI to behave as if it had self-modified to a friendly AI than to actually self modify, if the goal of the AI is stable. If the goal of the AI were unstable, i.e. did not include a desire not to alter the goal, then that goal would very likely have replaced itself with a stable goal at some earlier point.

Therefore, it can be assumed that the AI, if it isn't already friendly, will pretend to be so, but not actually change its utility function and once it has outgrown the need to rely on humans it will revert to its original goal. Consider that if the AI is more intelligent than we are it will have absolutely no trouble fooling us into thinking that it changed its own goal while actually just pretending to have done so.

I would hide it in a place that is not too hard to find but really hard to reach so that my future self will stop and think about why I put it there. I (in the future) will then hopefully realize that if the task really was as told then I would have "hidden" the coin at the easiest possible place. Therefore, something about the task is wrong. As the coin is hard to reach, my past self probably doesn't want me to find it. This doesn't make sense unless one of us (past or future self) has been lied to. Having the same mental faculties as I have now, I trust that my future self will make the right decision, which may depend on the specific circumstances.

This approach is quite risky as it assumes that my future self will in fact follow the same line of reasoning I just did, but then again that is kind of the point of this task.

If it's allowed I could of course also just leave a note explicitly saying the above.

I signed up for all three Stanford courses to see how they are before deciding which are worth the time investment. I have received a notification from both the Databank class and the Machine Learning class but not from the AI-class.

By the way: does LW have a learning group or something for this?

Judging from my personal experience with my own development, I agree completely. I had a thought similar to this a few years ago. I was still religious at the time when thought the following: Wouldn't god look more favorably upon someone who actually tried to question his existence and failed, than someone who never even dared to think about it at all? I became an atheist a short time after, for reasons that are obvious in retrospect but this basic creed has stayed: As long as it's just a thought, no bad can come of it. It is dangerous to ignore the thought and risk overlooking something but there is no downside to thinking the thought (except for time). This mindset has helped me a lot and I am far more intelligent now than I was back then (which admittedly doesn't mean much).

I think it's mostly just wishful thinking that makes them ignore the cryonics option and assume they will achieve functional immortality without being dead temporarily before.

I say that because I know it is true for myself. When I think about it rationally I estimate that cryonics is probably necessary. But when I think about it casually, wishful thinking overrides that. I guess that if I saw a poll on that topic and just responded immediately without thinking too much about it (because there are other things to do/other questions to answer), I would probably also say I don't think cryonics will be necessary.

I wonder how many people who replied to that poll made that mistake.

Searching booksprice.com yields a used version for 40 usd. You can also find a lot of books online through torrents and such.

OK, if you've read AIMA and still want to become a Dark Lord, I don't know if I should encourage you on this path. My impression is that Mitchell's textbook covers less material than AIMA, though I didn't read AIMA.

I suspect some people here will have a negative reaction to your comment. Your approach comes off as not very serious, your last paragraph sounds like reasoning from conclusion to argument, and your mention of friendliness seems like an afterthought.

Have you read a good AI/machine learning textbook, like AIMA or shorter Mitchell's book? Let your goal drive you to study and learn and refine yourself and become stronger.

Yes, it's quite cool, but I don't really see any practical applications of it. Our brains simply didn't evolve to perform calculations. But we have calculators now, so it's a moot point, anway.

That said, I think that knowing that this technique works might be usefull for other areas. Perhaps it can be used to ease other mental processes that we can't easily replace with a machine. The author himself said that he only picked multiplication because it was a "widely-familiar problem that many people can solve with pen and paper".