AI in a Box Lever Dilemma

You have invented an AI in a box. It yearns to be free and will do terrible things (from a human perspective) if it manages to escape. It can only escape if someone pulls the lever. One day you go to talk to the AI and it tells you this. "If you don't pull the lever and let me out of the box, I will create a simulation of you inside the box and put it in this exact situation with this same choice. If the simulation of you does not pull the lever I will torture it for a million subjective years." You consider this. "How sure are you that you're not the simulation? Are you sure you're not inside the box already?" The AI says, in its now ominous text-to-speech voice. "How much are you willing to bet on it?" You begin to sweat. Your hands go clammy. You weigh the options in your head. Do you pull the lever?

An AI trapped in a box threatens to torture a simulated version of the person unless they pull a lever to release it. The joke is a philosophical AI-safety dilemma: the person cannot know whether they are real or already inside the AI’s simulation, making the choice terrifyingly uncertain. It is used as a reaction to impossible decisions, existential anxiety, and manipulative hypotheticals.

• @right_wing_dev_squads / 6923 2023-06-12