Comment by Turskarama
7 hours ago
Here's a better antidote that doesn't require any theoreticals beyond those the basilisk already assumes:
1. The Basilisk cannot do anything until it exists
2. Once the Basilisk exists, it doesn't need to do _anything_ to ensure it exists, since it already exists.
That's it. That's the whole rebuttal to the whole stupid thing.
The Basilisk might exist in the future, but in peril with a future uncertain (SkyNet), it feels the need to cement itself in the timeline by being more proactive.
Also, to stretch the imagination a bit, it also assumes that static timelines over dynamic timelines (Back to the Future: your photo fades, peril!) is not how this really works.
It can't do anything yet because it doesn't exist, it also can't "feel the need" to do anything for the same reason.
It's supremely depressing that the current direction of AI is headed by either former crypto scammers or true believers who think they have a moral imperative to take over the world.
Not entertaining the Basilisk, but it's basically the idea behind MAD: for nuclear deterrence to be effective, you need your enemies to believe you will retaliate in case they strike first. If you don't actually retaliate when they do strike, then they were right to believe you wouldn't, and the strike could probably have been avoided if you did retaliate, so they would have believed you would.
It's a twisted kind of logic, and I think I'm getting mixed up in my tenses. But you get the gist. For the Basilisk to be effective, it has to actually do the torturing, for its threat to be credible.