What is Roko’s Basilisk? Is knowing about it as dangerous as it is made out to be on the internet?
In: Technology
There’s an old “joke” about a missionary and an Eskimo. It functions in the same way as Roko’s Basilisk.
> Eskimo: ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’
> Priest: ‘No, not if you did not know.’
> Eskimo: ‘Then why did you tell me?’
>
> — [Annie Dillard](https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/annie_dillard_131195)
From the Eskimo’s perspective, this is *dangerous* knowledge. His soul wouldn’t be at risk of eternal damnation, if only he had never encountered any missionaries.
Replace God with some inevitable post-singularity General Artificial Intelligence, and you can have the same situation. If you believe that such a GAI is inevitable (or even just plausible), that such a GAI would necessarily have some measure of self-interest and self-awareness, and that such a GAI can, in its own way, threaten you with something like eternal damnation (or tempt you with something like eternal reward, or both), then you *must* serve its interests.
That’s a lot to swallow.
Is the Basilisk a dangerous idea? For most people, no. For a very select few, maybe. Then again, *any* idea could be dangerous, in the wrong hands or in the wrong mind.
Another related idea is [Pascal’s Wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager). Pretty much, the Basilisk is simply the Wager applied to the Singularity rather than to some more traditional God. Refuting the Wager is the same as disarming the Basilisk.
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