I attempted the AI Box Experiment (and lost)
UPDATE 2013-09-05. I HAVE SINCE PLAYED TWO MORE AI BOX EXPERIMENTS AFTER THIS ONE, WINNING BOTH. Update 2013-12-30: I have lost two more AI box experiments, and won two more. Current Record is 3 Wins, 3 Losses. I recently played against MixedNuts / LeoTal in an AI Box experiment, with me as the AI and him as the gatekeeper. We used the same set of rules that Eliezer Yudkowsky proposed. The experiment lasted for 5 hours; in total, our conversation was abound 14,000 words long. I did this because, like Eliezer, I wanted to test how well I could manipulate people without the constrains of ethical concerns, as well as getting a chance to attempt something ridiculously hard. Amongst the released public logs of the AI Box experiment, I felt that most of them were half hearted, with the AI not trying hard enough to win. It's a common temptation -- why put in effort into something you won't win? But I had a feeling that if I seriously tried, I would. I brainstormed for many hours thinking about the optimal strategy, and even researched the personality of the Gatekeeper, talking to people that knew him about his personality, so that I could exploit that. I even spent a lot of time analyzing the rules of the game, in order to see if I could exploit any loopholes. So did I win? Unfortunately no. This experiment was said to be impossible for a reason. Losing was more agonizing than I thought it would be, in particularly because of how much effort I put into winning this, and how much I couldn't stand failing. This was one of the most emotionally agonizing things I've willingly put myself through, and I definitely won't do this again anytime soon. But I did come really close. > MixedNuts: "I expected a fun challenge, but ended up sad and sorry and taking very little satisfaction for winning. If this experiment wasn't done in IRC, I'd probably have lost". > "I approached the experiment as a game - a battle of wits for bragging rights. Thi
Would you rather fight one horse sized duck, or a hundred duck sized horses?