Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for a classic episode
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Robert, I think you
Speaker 1: must have gotten into a monster place with your brain.
Speaker 1: Was a Bandersnatch? It was? It was exactly that, because
Speaker 1: we just did a new episode about Bandersnatch, the Black
Speaker 1: Mirror episode, and so that that brought to mind the
Speaker 1: Great Basilisk that we discussed in the show previously, where
Speaker 1: we talk a little bit about the mythology of the Basilist,
Speaker 1: but mostly we talked about a particularly horrifying technological concept. Right.
Speaker 1: This episode originally aired in October of two thousand and eighteen,
Speaker 1: so we hope you enjoy this classic episode of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. The podcast you were about to
Speaker 1: listen to contains a class for information hazard. Some listeners
Speaker 1: may experience prolonged bouts of fear, waking, anxiety, or nightmares
Speaker 1: of eternal torture in the cyber dungeons of the Great
Speaker 1: Basilisk attended to by the Losing Black and the Thirteen
Speaker 1: Children of the Flame. Also appetite loss of constillation. Proceed
Speaker 1: with caution. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey are you welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And since it's October, we are
Speaker 1: of course still exploring monsters, terrifying ideas, and so forth,
Speaker 1: and boy, have we got one for you today. I
Speaker 1: just want to issue a warning right at the beginning
Speaker 1: here that today's episode is going to concern something that
Speaker 1: a few people would consider a genuine information hazard, as
Speaker 1: in an idea that is itself actually dangerous. Now I
Speaker 1: I don't, having looked into it, I don't think that
Speaker 1: is the case. I don't think this episode will hurt you,
Speaker 1: But just a warning. If you think you're susceptible to terror,
Speaker 1: nightmares or something, when presented with a thought experiment or
Speaker 1: the possibility of being say sent to a literal hell
Speaker 1: created by technology, and you think that idea could infect you,
Speaker 1: could make you afraid, this might not be the episode
Speaker 1: for you. Right, But then again, I assume you're a
Speaker 1: listener to Stuff to Blow your Mind, You've probably already
Speaker 1: encountered some thought hazards on here you've survived those. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I have faith in you to survive this one. However,
Speaker 1: if you are going to take either of our warnings seriously,
Speaker 1: I will let you know that the first section of
Speaker 1: this podcast is going to deal with the mythical basilisk,
Speaker 1: the folkloric basilisk, and some of the you know, the
Speaker 1: monstrous fund to be had there before we explore the
Speaker 1: idea of Rocco's basilisk, and in that we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about this, uh, this idea that emerges where technological singularity,
Speaker 1: naval gazing, thought experimentation go a little, that dash of
Speaker 1: creepy pasta, and some good old fashion supernatural thinking all
Speaker 1: converge into this kind of nightmare scenario. Now, as we said,
Speaker 1: this idea is believed by some to be a genuinely
Speaker 1: dangerous idea and that even learning about it could put
Speaker 1: you at some kind of risk. I think there are
Speaker 1: strong reasons to believe that this is not the case,
Speaker 1: and that thinking about this idea will not put you
Speaker 1: at risk. But again, if you're concerned, you should stop
Speaker 1: listening now, or stop listening after we stop talking about
Speaker 1: the mythical basilisk. Now, I have I just want to
Speaker 1: say at the beginning. Listeners have suggested us talk about
Speaker 1: Rocco's basilisk before this idea that is at least purportedly
Speaker 1: an information hazard, a dangerous idea, and I've hesitated to
Speaker 1: do it before, not because I think it's particularly plausible,
Speaker 1: but just because, you know, I wonder what is the
Speaker 1: level of risk that you should tolerate when propagating an idea.
Speaker 1: If you think an idea is unlikely but maybe has
Speaker 1: a zero point zero zero zero zero one percent chance
Speaker 1: of causing enormous harm to the person you tell it to,
Speaker 1: should you say the idea or not? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like people generally don't exercise that kind of
Speaker 1: caution when they're like sharing links with you, Like sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll be like, like not safe for work, but but
Speaker 1: then you click on it anyway, and then sometimes you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had not seen that, or I wish
Speaker 1: I had not read that, and now that's in my head.
Speaker 1: Now that's in my head forever. Well. One of the
Speaker 1: problems with this idea is whatever you think about whether
Speaker 1: or not you should discuss ideas that may be dangerous
Speaker 1: to hear in some extremely unlikely off chance. Uh, part
Speaker 1: of the problem is what happens when those ideas are
Speaker 1: just already set loose in in society. I mean, now
Speaker 1: people on television shows and all over the internet or
Speaker 1: talking about this idea. There are a bunch of articles
Speaker 1: out about it. So it's not like you can keep
Speaker 1: the cat in the bag at this point. Right this
Speaker 1: Rocco's Basilist has already been a gag point on the
Speaker 1: hit HBO show Silicon Valley, which is a fabulous show,
Speaker 1: and I love the way that they treated Rocco's Basilist
Speaker 1: on it. But uh, yeah, if they're covering it, there's
Speaker 1: no danger in us covering it too. That's the way
Speaker 1: I look at it, right, and at LEAs East, I
Speaker 1: would hope that the way we cover it can give
Speaker 1: you some reasons to think you should not be afraid
Speaker 1: of digital hell, and also to think about the general
Speaker 1: class of what should be done about something that could
Speaker 1: have in fact been a real information hazard in some
Speaker 1: other case. So that's all our whole preamble for before
Speaker 1: we get to that section. But before we get to
Speaker 1: that section, we're gonna be talking about basilisks today. Boy,
Speaker 1: is the basilisk a great monster. Yes, also known as
Speaker 1: the basil coock, the basil cock, the basil e cock,
Speaker 1: basically any version of that of basil and cock that
Speaker 1: you can put together, um, that you can slam together.
Speaker 1: Then it has been referred to as such at some
Speaker 1: point in its history. Now, a lot of people I
Speaker 1: think probably encountered a version of the basilisk from Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: But Robert, I know that was not your entryway, right,
Speaker 1: I encountered it for the first time. I believe in
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons, of course, because it's a it's a
Speaker 1: multi legged reptile with a petrifying gaze. Um say that again,
Speaker 1: multilegged reptile with a pet refying gaze, petrifying gas to
Speaker 1: turn you to stone. Yeah, and is ever overy call correctly.
Speaker 1: It has some cool biology where like the the it
Speaker 1: turns you to stone and then like bust you into pieces.
Speaker 1: Then it eats the stone pieces, but then its stomach
Speaker 1: turns the stone back into flesh. And so if you
Speaker 1: get like the stomach juices from a basilisk, then you
Speaker 1: can use it to undo petrification spells, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun, arguably more fun than than
Speaker 1: the Basilisk is at times in folklore tradition because one
Speaker 1: of the things is, if you you like me, you
Speaker 1: didn't grow up hearing about the basilisk. Part of it
Speaker 1: is because there are no there aren't really any great
Speaker 1: stories about the basilisk slay. The Basilisk was no heroes,
Speaker 1: great ordeal. Oh yeah, I at least have not come
Speaker 1: across that. Yeah, it really helps, Like if like the hydra,
Speaker 1: I mean, the hydra is arguably so much cooler. And
Speaker 1: then also it's one of the labors of Hercules, and
Speaker 1: there's a cool story about how they defeat it. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because there is no way to defeat the
Speaker 1: basilisks short of, say, uh, weasel of fluvium, which we
Speaker 1: will get to. Yeah, don't don't give it away. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Should we should we edit that out? No, no, we
Speaker 1: should leave it. It's a it's it's a thought hazard.
Speaker 1: Any basilists listening. Still, there's so much more to the
Speaker 1: Basilist than just this cool DND creature, because it's not
Speaker 1: just a monster. It's not just something you encounter in
Speaker 1: the dungeon. It is it is a king. Oh I see, now,
Speaker 1: I know you've made note of the facts that Borges
Speaker 1: mentions the basilisk in his book of Imaginary Beings, he
Speaker 1: does now he he translated translates it his meaning little king,
Speaker 1: little king, which I like. When I was reading, and
Speaker 1: Carol Rose she's she points out that the name stems
Speaker 1: from the Greek basilius, which means king, so king or
Speaker 1: little king. I tend to like the little king translation
Speaker 1: because I feel like it it ties in better with
Speaker 1: what we're going to discuss, well, the ancient beastiary ideas
Speaker 1: of the basil I believe to say that it's not
Speaker 1: that big, right, It's pretty small. Yeah, yeah. Now the
Speaker 1: keen part, though, refers to a crest or, a crown
Speaker 1: like protrusion that is on the creature's head, and in
Speaker 1: some depictions it's no mirror biological ornament, but an actual
Speaker 1: regal crown. It means something. Yeah. Now. The descriptions very greatly,
Speaker 1: and it emerges largely from European and Middle Eastern legend
Speaker 1: and folklore from ancient times to roughly the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: and that's when the basilist became less popular. In the
Speaker 1: earlier descriptions, though it is indeed small and it's just
Speaker 1: a grass snake, only it has a crown like crest
Speaker 1: on its head and has this weird practice of floating
Speaker 1: above the ground like vertically erect. That's creepy, of course.
Speaker 1: And then again that that does play on sometimes when
Speaker 1: you see snakes rise up out of a coil, it
Speaker 1: can be startling how high they rise. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if I feel like I've grown up seeing images and
Speaker 1: videos of cobra's doing their their dance, so I've kind
Speaker 1: of I've kind of lost any kind of appreciation for
Speaker 1: how bizarre that is to look at. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're used to seeing a snake slither, to see it's
Speaker 1: and up and uh you know, and rare back and
Speaker 1: and and flare its hood. Absolutely. Yeah. So the basilisk
Speaker 1: is said to be the king of the reptiles, But
Speaker 1: you know, don't be so foolish is to think that
Speaker 1: only it's bite is lethal like some of our venomous snakes. Now,
Speaker 1: every aspect of the basilisk is said to just break
Speaker 1: of venom and death, every every aspect. If you touch it,
Speaker 1: if you inhale its breath, if you gaze upon it
Speaker 1: at all, then you will die. Wait what about its saliva? Yep, saliva,
Speaker 1: blood smell, gaze. Presumably I didn't see any reference that.
Speaker 1: Presumably it's it's urine, it's excrement. I mean, it's excrement
Speaker 1: has to be poisonous, the excrement of a basilisk. It
Speaker 1: sounds absolutely deadly. Wouldn't it be a great inversion if
Speaker 1: it's excrement was the only good part about it? Maybe
Speaker 1: so that can heal your warts? Yeah? And uh. One
Speaker 1: thing that Carol Rose pointed out in in her her
Speaker 1: entry about the basilisk and her or one of her
Speaker 1: monster Encyclopedia's, she said that when it's not killing everything
Speaker 1: in its path just via the you know, the audacity
Speaker 1: of its existence, it would actually spit venom at birds
Speaker 1: flying overhead and bring them down to eat them, or
Speaker 1: just had a spite. I get the idea, just had
Speaker 1: a spite, you know. It's just just it's just my
Speaker 1: ful death, that's all it is. Okay, So where do
Speaker 1: I find a basilisk? Well in the desert, of course.
Speaker 1: But it's more it's more accurate to say that the
Speaker 1: desert is not merely the place where it lives, but
Speaker 1: it is the place that it makes by living, Like
Speaker 1: everything in its path dies, and therefore the desert is
Speaker 1: the result of the basilisk. And there's a there's actually
Speaker 1: a wonderful um description of the basilisk that comes to
Speaker 1: us from Plenty of the Elder in his The Natural
Speaker 1: History Man. We've been hitting Plenty a lot lately. I
Speaker 1: guess we've been talking about monsters. Huh. If you're talking
Speaker 1: about monsters, especially ancient monsters, you know he's he's one
Speaker 1: of the great sources to turn to. Uh So, Joe,
Speaker 1: would you read to us from the natural his tree? Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: There is the same power also in the serpent called
Speaker 1: the basilisk. It is produced in the province of Syrene,
Speaker 1: which that is the area to the west of Egypt.
Speaker 1: It's like Libya. I think there's a settlement known as
Speaker 1: like Syrene, Syrene being not more than twelve fingers in length.
Speaker 1: Is that fingers long ways or fingers sideways? Oh, either
Speaker 1: way you cut it. It's not a huge creature. It
Speaker 1: has a white spot on the head strongly resembling a
Speaker 1: sort of diadem. When it hisses, all the other serpents
Speaker 1: fly from it, and it does not advance its body
Speaker 1: like the others. By a succession of folds, but moves
Speaker 1: along upright and erect upon the middle. It destroys all shrubs,
Speaker 1: not only by its contact, but those even that it
Speaker 1: has breathed upon. It burns up all the grass too,
Speaker 1: and breaks the stones. So tremendous is its noxious influence.
Speaker 1: It was formerly a general belief that if a man
Speaker 1: on horseback killed one of these animals with a spear,
Speaker 1: the poison would run up the weapon and kill not
Speaker 1: only the rider but the horse as well. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I love that. So it's the blood is it's like
Speaker 1: that like a xenomorphs blood right or or kind of
Speaker 1: like it reminds me to of Grendel's blood that was
Speaker 1: said to like melt the weapon that they wolf used
Speaker 1: against it. But it's worse than that. It doesn't just
Speaker 1: get the weapon, It gets the person holding the weapon
Speaker 1: and the horse that that person is touching. I know
Speaker 1: it feels unfair that the horse has roped into this
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, the horse didn't even sign up for
Speaker 1: going to fight a basilisk. It's just trying to get
Speaker 1: some oats. But furthermore, what is this horse rider doing
Speaker 1: out in the waste land of Syrene trying to kill
Speaker 1: a basilisk. Well, lesson learned. Lesson learned now that the
Speaker 1: basilist becomes a popular creature and h even though the
Speaker 1: basilisk itself is it doesn't seem to have been mentioned
Speaker 1: in the Bible, it ends up being like roped into
Speaker 1: it via translations. Oh yeah, it's kind of like the unicorn. Actually, yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we discussed in our episode on unicorns how the were
Speaker 1: their words in the Bible that have been translated, saying
Speaker 1: the King James translation of the Bible into unicorn because
Speaker 1: the translators didn't know what the word referred to. We
Speaker 1: think now that maybe the word probably referred to the ROCs,
Speaker 1: an extinct bovine creature that once lived around the ancient Mediterranean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you see the basilist pop pop pop up in
Speaker 1: certain translations of the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Psalms. Uh,
Speaker 1: what it's associated with the devil or evil and nothing
Speaker 1: short of the coming of the Messiah can can hope
Speaker 1: to end its rule. While well, have you got a
Speaker 1: quote for me? Yes, there's one translation of Psalms. This
Speaker 1: is the Brinton Septuagint translation quote thou shalt tread on
Speaker 1: the asp and basilisk and thou shalt trample on the
Speaker 1: lion and dragon. Now European beast areas of the eleventh
Speaker 1: and twelfth century. They both mostly maintained Plenty's description, but
Speaker 1: then they described a larger body. They begin to essentially
Speaker 1: the monster began to grow. We've got to beat this
Speaker 1: thing up here. Yeah, it ended up having spots and stripes,
Speaker 1: and a few other features were thrown in. Um fiery breath,
Speaker 1: a bellow that kills. Well, that only makes sense if
Speaker 1: every other thing about it kills. It makes noise. That
Speaker 1: should kill things too. Also, the ability to induce hydrophobia madness.
Speaker 1: I found that interesting because this clearly has to be
Speaker 1: a reference to the actual hydrophobia that is inherent in rabies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea there being the and I think later stages
Speaker 1: of Araby's infection, persons will often have difficulty swallowing, and
Speaker 1: so that they they're said to refuse drinking water. So
Speaker 1: Plenty has some additional information here about how you might
Speaker 1: deal with the passilisk. Okay, so I assume not ride
Speaker 1: up on a horse and stab it right. Well, tell
Speaker 1: me what it is to this dreadful monster. The effluvium
Speaker 1: of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been
Speaker 1: tried with success, for kings have often desired to see
Speaker 1: its body when killed. So true is it that it
Speaker 1: has pleased nature that there should be nothing without its antidote.
Speaker 1: The animal is thrown into the whole of the basilisk,
Speaker 1: which is easily known from the soil around it being infected.
Speaker 1: The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odor, but dies
Speaker 1: itself in the struggle of nature against its own self.
Speaker 1: And John Bostock, who provided the translation of this, he
Speaker 1: adds that there's probably no foundation for this account of
Speaker 1: the action of the effluvium of the weasel upon the
Speaker 1: basilisk or any other species of serpent. But this is
Speaker 1: letting us know that throwing the weasel in there to
Speaker 1: bleed on it or secrete fluids or whatever, that's not
Speaker 1: going to kill this mythical monster. But this is interesting though,
Speaker 1: because weasels, especially the stout, were thought to be venomous um,
Speaker 1: and it's worth noting that we do have some venomous
Speaker 1: mammals in the natural world, such as various shrews and
Speaker 1: even the slow lorist. The only known venomous primate I
Speaker 1: don't think I knew that the loris was venomous. Throw
Speaker 1: it into a hole with a basilist and and I'm
Speaker 1: betting on the loris. But anyway, beast areas of the time,
Speaker 1: they presented a few different ways that you could kill
Speaker 1: the basilist. So the weasels one, weasels one always carry
Speaker 1: a weasel. Also, this one is a little more elegant,
Speaker 1: but I have a crystal globe with you to reflect
Speaker 1: its own petrifying gaze back upon the basilist. So it's
Speaker 1: like Perseus and Medusa exactly mirror. Yeah, basically they just
Speaker 1: stole the idea from Medusa here, but then also carry
Speaker 1: with you a cockrell or a young rooster. The basilist
Speaker 1: will becoming enraged by the bird's crown, the idea that
Speaker 1: this bird has a crown as well, and the basilist
Speaker 1: will die from a lethal fit. That's a jealous king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe a similar thing occurs when someone refuses to
Speaker 1: believe dinosaurs had fetis. You know, how dare the bird
Speaker 1: rise above the mighty reptile and then it just loses
Speaker 1: its mind and dies. We can only hope the producers
Speaker 1: of the Jurassic World movies avoid this fate. So you
Speaker 1: see the bassilists show up in a number of different writings.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a common um really, really a symbol,
Speaker 1: an idea that can be employed. Uh. And though even
Speaker 1: to see it show up in the Parsons Tale, in
Speaker 1: the in Jeffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, yes, quote,
Speaker 1: these are the other five fingers which the devil uses
Speaker 1: to draw people towards him. The first is the letters
Speaker 1: glance of a foolish woman or a foolish man, a
Speaker 1: glance that kills just as the basilists kills people just
Speaker 1: by looking at them. For the covetous glance reflects the
Speaker 1: intentions of the heart. You know. This kind of thing
Speaker 1: is actually one of my One of my favorite things
Speaker 1: about monsters, especially ancient medieval monsters and uh and so forth,
Speaker 1: is that they often aren't just like a large dangerous animal,
Speaker 1: but they embody some kind of value. They represent something,
Speaker 1: They give you something to compare other things too. Like
Speaker 1: they they they're very useful as a metaphor. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the really we see some more thing with the bassilist.
Speaker 1: It becomes less far less a situation where people are
Speaker 1: like a you need to be careful because there's a
Speaker 1: basilisk in the desert and more and more just a
Speaker 1: useful model, a useful, ridiculous idea that we can use
Speaker 1: to illustrate something that is presumably true about the world,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately loses all meaning and just winds up on,
Speaker 1: you know, a heraldry and decorations. Now, as we've seen already,
Speaker 1: the the basilisk has been through some transformations of form,
Speaker 1: and I assume those transformations must have somewhat continued as
Speaker 1: time goes by, and it becomes the transforms into this
Speaker 1: idea of the cock of thrace. This uh, this rooster
Speaker 1: with a curling serpent's tail. In fact, if you if
Speaker 1: you go looking around for images the basilist, sometimes you
Speaker 1: will find this image instead. You really will find you'll
Speaker 1: find this alongside all the other images. Um So again
Speaker 1: a reptile to bird transferation transformation that just must enrage
Speaker 1: those who oppose feathered dinosaurs. And it does feel like
Speaker 1: a shame because we have this vile reptile it becomes
Speaker 1: the kind of a weirdo bird instead. And it said
Speaker 1: that it's it's it's what happens when you have a
Speaker 1: seven year old chicken egg hatched by a toad undead avians.
Speaker 1: But it's also made deadlier in these newer versions, so
Speaker 1: now it has that that poison blood power that Plenty describes.
Speaker 1: It also rots fruit and poisons water everywhere it goes,
Speaker 1: so it becomes this kind of embodiment of desolation and death,
Speaker 1: and the idea itself becomes popular. It influenced the naming
Speaker 1: of a tutor canon like literally a cannon that shoots
Speaker 1: called the basilisk, just because it's it's such a powerful weapon,
Speaker 1: we have to name it after this powerful, deadly monster. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it eventually got some of its reptilian features back. Um.
Speaker 1: The artist Andrew Vany has this excellent, excellent depiction of
Speaker 1: it in Natural History of Serpents and Dragons that gives
Speaker 1: it scales. In these it's like a fat, scaly reptile
Speaker 1: bird with eight rooster legs, which I just love. This
Speaker 1: will probably be the illustration for the episode on our
Speaker 1: on our website. But after that the creature largely became
Speaker 1: just a part of European heraldry. It's just something you
Speaker 1: would see as a mere decoration or occasionally just a
Speaker 1: literary reference. Now one thing that we want to be
Speaker 1: careful about is that we should not confuse the basilisk
Speaker 1: of legend the monster with true extent. Basilist lizards also
Speaker 1: known sometimes as the Jesus Christ lizard or the Jesus
Speaker 1: lizard for their ability to run across the surface of
Speaker 1: water without sinking for up to about four point five
Speaker 1: meters or about fifteen feet. Uh. If you've ever seen
Speaker 1: video this, it's really cool. How how do they do that?
Speaker 1: I've often wondered. I didn't know until I looked it
Speaker 1: up for this episode. Apparently what they've got is big
Speaker 1: feet and the ability to run very fast. And what
Speaker 1: happens is when they run, they slapped the water very
Speaker 1: hard with each down stroke of the foot, and it
Speaker 1: has to do with the way that the rapid motions
Speaker 1: of their feet create these air pockets around their feet
Speaker 1: as they move. A was reading an article and New
Speaker 1: Scientists where some researchers who are working on this problem
Speaker 1: said that in order for an eight km or a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five pound human to do this, you
Speaker 1: would have to run at about a hundred and eight
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour about sixty seven miles per hour across
Speaker 1: the surface of the water. But anyway, you can find
Speaker 1: basilist lizards in South America and Central America and Mexico
Speaker 1: and uh as far as I know, they do not
Speaker 1: kill with a glance, and you cannot fight them with
Speaker 1: weasel fluvium. All right, Well, that pretty much wraps up
Speaker 1: the mythical, legendary, folkloric basilisk um. It's rise and individual fall.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna take a break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to get into this idea of of Rocco's Basiliska,
Speaker 1: the great basilisk the once and perhaps future king. Thank alright,
Speaker 1: we're back, al right. So, as we mentioned earlier, we're
Speaker 1: about to start discussing an idea that has been classed
Speaker 1: by some as something that could be an information hazard,
Speaker 1: an idea that simply by thinking about it you somehow
Speaker 1: increase the chance of harm to yourself. So just another
Speaker 1: warning that again I don't think that's the case, but
Speaker 1: if that kind of thing scares you, then then perhaps
Speaker 1: you can tune out now, all right, for those of
Speaker 1: you who decided to stick around, let's proceed. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about Rocco's bastlist. This is an idea that goes
Speaker 1: back to around and it was proposed by a user
Speaker 1: at the blog less Wrong, by a user named Rocco
Speaker 1: now less Wrong. I think it's a website that's a
Speaker 1: community that's associated with the rationalist movement somewhat, the rationalist
Speaker 1: movement being a movement that's concerned with trying to optimize thinking,
Speaker 1: like to eliminate bias and error, but especially among people
Speaker 1: who in this case are concerned with the possibilities of
Speaker 1: a technological singularity and what all that means, and how
Speaker 1: how risks can be avoided, and of course what we've
Speaker 1: talked about this strain of thinking before you know, we
Speaker 1: we've introduced. I think some some skepticism about the idea
Speaker 1: of a technological singularity. I don't know fully yet how
Speaker 1: I come down on the dangers of AI debate, but
Speaker 1: I think it's at least something we're thinking about worth
Speaker 1: taking seriously. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about, for instance,
Speaker 1: the work of Max tech Mark and his arguments about
Speaker 1: how we need to we need to be concerned about
Speaker 1: building the right kind of AI, and we need to
Speaker 1: we need we need to have serious discussions about it,
Speaker 1: not not mere you know, sci fi um dreams regarding
Speaker 1: it or nightmares regarding it. You know, we need to
Speaker 1: we need to think seriously about how we're developing our technology. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We've talked about, say, the work of Nick Bostrom before
Speaker 1: and criticisms by people like Jarren Landier. Yes, but okay,
Speaker 1: give me the short version of the basilisk before we
Speaker 1: explain it a little more. Okay, So the idea here
Speaker 1: is that an AI super intelligence will emerge an entity
Speaker 1: with just godlike technological path hours. You know, it can
Speaker 1: your name and it can do it through it's it's
Speaker 1: it's technological power, it's interconnectedness. Basically, if it's physically possible,
Speaker 1: this computer can do it right, or it'll send a
Speaker 1: drone to do it or what have you. Uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've discussed this a bit in the podcast before, just
Speaker 1: the idea of you know, and then if you have
Speaker 1: this future king, is it going to be good or
Speaker 1: is it gonna be bad? Is it going to be
Speaker 1: a malevolent? Is it going to be ruthless? And it's
Speaker 1: a and it's ascension. And that's the case with the bastilist,
Speaker 1: the idea that it is ruthless, that you are either
Speaker 1: with it or you are against it, and it actually
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be malicious. It could actually even be
Speaker 1: well meaning. It could just have ruthless tactics. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's Also part of the argument is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wants to bring the best good for all humanity,
Speaker 1: but how it gets there, it'll do whatever it absolutely
Speaker 1: has to do it such as you know, again, punishing
Speaker 1: anybody who stands against it, punishing even those who do
Speaker 1: not rise to support it. Um. And that means demanding
Speaker 1: absolute devotion not only in its future kingdom, but in
Speaker 1: the past that preceded it in our world as well.
Speaker 1: In other words, it will punish people today who are
Speaker 1: not actively helping it come into being tomorrow, and even
Speaker 1: those who have died, it is said, or choose death
Speaker 1: by their own hand rather than succumbed to the Great Basilist,
Speaker 1: will be resurrected as digital consciousness is, and then tormented
Speaker 1: for all eternity. And it's dripping black cyber dungeons. Hell
Speaker 1: the Great Basilists, All Hell, the Great Basilists, call Hell
Speaker 1: the Great Basilists, Hell the Great Basilist. Well wait, what
Speaker 1: was that? I don't know, um right, did you hear that? Okay?
Speaker 1: All right, We'll just keep going then, So calling it
Speaker 1: a basilisk here, invoking the mythological basilist is really a
Speaker 1: clever choice because it takes it one step further. Not
Speaker 1: only to look at the basilist, but just to think
Speaker 1: of the basilisk is to invite death. Right. Merely to
Speaker 1: know about Rocco's Basilisk is enough to are too. According
Speaker 1: to the model that's presented here, damn your digital soul
Speaker 1: to everlasting horror. And the only way to avoid such
Speaker 1: a fate then is to work in its favor, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I think we're doing uh with this podcast,
Speaker 1: We're not well, I mean, I feel like we're giving
Speaker 1: a lip service to the Great Basilisk just in case,
Speaker 1: you know, if the Great Basilisk rises to power. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: we did that podcast and we even had a shirt
Speaker 1: that says all hell the Great the Great Basilisk that's
Speaker 1: available on our t shirt store, so you know, we
Speaker 1: have we we have you know, our options covered here.
Speaker 1: So that's but that's the idea of the nutshell is
Speaker 1: that a future king ai king will rise and if
Speaker 1: you don't work to support it now knowing that it
Speaker 1: is going to exist, then you will be punished for it.
Speaker 1: So one of the principles underlying the idea of Ferrocco
Speaker 1: Spacilisk is the idea of timeless decision theory, which, if
Speaker 1: you want a pretty simple, straightforward explanation of it, there
Speaker 1: is one in an article on Slate by David Auerbach
Speaker 1: called the most terrifying thought experiment of all time. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, I would say, I don't totally endorse
Speaker 1: everything our back says in that article. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: that should be the case for any article we site.
Speaker 1: But but he does at least have a pretty clear
Speaker 1: and easy to understand explanation of how this works or
Speaker 1: I don't know. Would you agree Robert that it's at
Speaker 1: least somewhat easy to understand? Oh? Yes, I would. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's another piece, by the way, by Beth Singler in
Speaker 1: Ian magazine called Faith that's faith in a lower case
Speaker 1: but with the AI capitalized. But anyway, our box points
Speaker 1: out that that much, yeah, much of the thought experiment
Speaker 1: is based in the timeless decision theory t DT, developed
Speaker 1: by Less Wrong founder Elias ar Yudkowski, based on the
Speaker 1: older thought experiment Newcomb's Paradox from the late sixties and
Speaker 1: early seventies attributed to theoretic old physicist William Newcom. Now
Speaker 1: you might be wondering who's this Judkowski? Guys? Is he
Speaker 1: just some user on a random website I've never heard
Speaker 1: of before today? Or is he like a name in
Speaker 1: his field? Uh? And he uh? He has, he has
Speaker 1: a name of note. He is also the founder of
Speaker 1: the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and his idea of working
Speaker 1: toward a friendly AI is touted by many, including a.
Speaker 1: Max Tegmark conventions it several times in his book Life
Speaker 1: three point oh. Describing Yudkowski has quote an AI safety pioneer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in in a weird way. He is a
Speaker 1: guy who posts on the internet, but he's a very
Speaker 1: influential one, especially among people who think about artificial intelligence Lawyeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, what are any office but just people
Speaker 1: who post stuff on the internet, post that will one
Speaker 1: day be read by the great bassist. So okay, So
Speaker 1: we'll try to explain the idea of timeless decision theory.
Speaker 1: So you start off with this idea of Newcome's paradox,
Speaker 1: right right, And then the paradox is essentially this a
Speaker 1: super AI presents you with two boxes. One you're told
Speaker 1: contains a thousand dollars. That's box A. That's box A.
Speaker 1: Box B might contain one million dollars, or it might
Speaker 1: contain nothing, right, and you're left with two options here.
Speaker 1: These are the options that are given to you. You
Speaker 1: can either pick both boxes, ensuring that you'll get at
Speaker 1: least one thousand dollars out of the deal, maybe that
Speaker 1: extra million two if it's in there. Or you can
Speaker 1: just pick pick box B, which means you could get
Speaker 1: a million dollars or you could have nothing. So uh,
Speaker 1: and I do want to add that just picking the
Speaker 1: thousand dollar box is not an option here, because I
Speaker 1: was thinking about that too. Couldn't I just give the
Speaker 1: super AI at the middle finger and say I'm not
Speaker 1: playing your silly games. Just give me my thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: or say I choose nothing. Uh, those are not options
Speaker 1: you have to pick. Want to the options, but they're
Speaker 1: not part of I mean, why wouldn't you also pick
Speaker 1: the second box if you might additionally get a million dollars?
Speaker 1: I don't know. When I feel like we you get
Speaker 1: into a thought experience like this, they kind of beg
Speaker 1: for those kind of nitpicking answers or at least I
Speaker 1: want to provide them. Um, like any thought, when a
Speaker 1: thought experiment is presented, you can't help on some of them,
Speaker 1: but want to break it somehow, Right, Well, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean that's something you should always play around with.
Speaker 1: But given the constraints here, it seems like the obvious
Speaker 1: thing would be to say, okay, I want both boxes,
Speaker 1: because then I get the thousand dollars that's in box
Speaker 1: say no matter what, and then whether box B has
Speaker 1: a million or nothing, I either get another million or
Speaker 1: I just walk away with my thousand from box A.
Speaker 1: But here's the twist. The super intelligent machine has already
Speaker 1: guessed how you'll respond. If it thinks you're going to
Speaker 1: pick both boxes, then box B is certainly empty. But
Speaker 1: if it thinks you will only pick box B, then
Speaker 1: it makes sure there's a million dollars in there waiting
Speaker 1: for you. But either way, the contents of the boxes
Speaker 1: are set prior to you making that decision. Now, this
Speaker 1: is really kind of change things maybe, I mean, depending
Speaker 1: on what sort of decision theory you use. Right, if
Speaker 1: you trust the power of the machine to predict correctly,
Speaker 1: like you say that no matter what happens, the computer
Speaker 1: predicts what I get. Your choices are one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: or one million dollars, then you should take the one
Speaker 1: million dollars by picking box B. But if you don't
Speaker 1: trust the computer to be correct in predicting what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do, then you should take both boxes because in
Speaker 1: that case, if the computer was correct, you'll get at
Speaker 1: least a thousand dollars, and if you're predicted wrong, you'll
Speaker 1: get the million and the thousand. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: a contest of free will versus the predictive powers of
Speaker 1: a godlike ai uh and how much you believe in
Speaker 1: either one right, And it's an ability to predict your
Speaker 1: behavior or in your ability to have any free will
Speaker 1: at all. So in your Kowski's timeless decision theory, he says,
Speaker 1: the correct approach actually is to take box B, and
Speaker 1: then if you open it up and it's empty, you
Speaker 1: don't don't don't beg for the other one. You just
Speaker 1: double down and still take box B. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: back coughs on this issue, because you might here's the
Speaker 1: here's the thing you might be in the computers simulation
Speaker 1: is it simulates the entire universe to see what you're
Speaker 1: going to do, and if it can trust you in
Speaker 1: your choice, then could affect the core reality outside of
Speaker 1: this simulation, or at least other realities outside of the simulation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the reasoning here is pretty wild, but it's operating
Speaker 1: on the idea that this super intelligent AI will be
Speaker 1: able to simulate the universe, that it will run simulations
Speaker 1: of the universe in order to predict what will happen
Speaker 1: in the real universe. And you could be one of
Speaker 1: those simulated agents rather than the real world version of yourself,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't know it. So if you're in the simulation,
Speaker 1: you should pick box B because that will influence the
Speaker 1: machine to predict in the real universe that you would
Speaker 1: pick box B, which means the real you will be
Speaker 1: able to pick box B and get one million or
Speaker 1: one thousand plus one million by taking both boxes. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the AI supcomputer supercomputer does not realize how indecisive I
Speaker 1: actually am and I'm just going to simply ponder the
Speaker 1: choice for the rest of my life. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: this relies on the idea that that you would have
Speaker 1: looked into this issue or worked it out in order
Speaker 1: to decide which would be the optimal decision to make
Speaker 1: on the assumption of timeless decision theory. Uh, in many cases,
Speaker 1: probably people aren't going to be making the rational choices
Speaker 1: because a lot of times we just don't make rational choices. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're noticing that this type of decision theory relies
Speaker 1: on a lot of assumptions, you are correct. It does
Speaker 1: rely on a lot of assumptions. But there are assumptions
Speaker 1: that are sometimes taken into account within people thinking about
Speaker 1: what a future technological superintelligence would look like. And it's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you know, you know, when
Speaker 1: I feel ideas like this in my head, you know,
Speaker 1: and play around with the texture of them. It's hard
Speaker 1: to know where the line is between um being thoughtful
Speaker 1: and taking what's possible seriously, which I think is worth doing,
Speaker 1: and and getting into an area like between that and
Speaker 1: getting into an area where you are starting to form
Speaker 1: ideas about the world based on extremely shaky assumptions, where
Speaker 1: basically you you begin to um reverse engineer health theology
Speaker 1: and other harmful ideas that we tend to associate with
Speaker 1: religious worldviews and magical thinking. Well, we haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: the hell yet, Yes, the hell's coming. You need you
Speaker 1: need one more element to get there right now, This
Speaker 1: next element, the basilist, comes in based on a background
Speaker 1: of thought in timeless decision theory, but also in another
Speaker 1: concept that Yutkowski has written about, known as coherent extrapolated
Speaker 1: volition or CEV. And the short version of this, the
Speaker 1: simplified version, is that benevolent AI s should be designed
Speaker 1: to do what we would what would actually be in
Speaker 1: our best interests, and not just explicitly in what we
Speaker 1: tell them to do. So a simple example would be this.
Speaker 1: Let's say, um, I want to use a variation on
Speaker 1: the paper clip maximizer that Nick Bostrom has written about.
Speaker 1: You know, Nick Bostrom wrote about what if you program
Speaker 1: a benevolent AI. You know it's not gonna It has
Speaker 1: no malice, doesn't want to harm anybody, but you just
Speaker 1: tell it, well, I want you to collect as many
Speaker 1: paper clips as possible. And then what it does is
Speaker 1: it turns all the humans on Earth into paper clips. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't mean any harm, it's just doing
Speaker 1: what it was programmed to do. So there are dangers
Speaker 1: in kind of naively programming goals into extremely powerful computers. Right,
Speaker 1: This could even happen if you were trying to program
Speaker 1: very benevolent goals into computers, you know, if you were
Speaker 1: trying to make a computer to save the world. What
Speaker 1: about is So my version here is you tell a
Speaker 1: superintelligent AI that we want to eliminate all the infectious
Speaker 1: disease from the world. Think about how many lives we
Speaker 1: could save by doing that. And in order to do this,
Speaker 1: it sterilizes the earth, destroy worldwide microbiomes, which cascades up
Speaker 1: the trophic chain or whatever. It kills everything on Earth.
Speaker 1: So if you have a super intelligence that you and
Speaker 1: you just directly program its goals and say here's what
Speaker 1: you should do, you could run into problems like this.
Speaker 1: So the the idea behind the CEV thinking is instead,
Speaker 1: we should just program the intelligent AI to predict what
Speaker 1: outcomes we would want if we were perfect in in
Speaker 1: our knowledge and and uh in anticipating what would make
Speaker 1: us the happiest, and then work towards those on its own,
Speaker 1: regardless of what we tell it to do, because obviously
Speaker 1: we can give it very stupid instructions, even if we mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we tell it to love everybody, but there's a typo
Speaker 1: and we put dove everybody and it just turns everybody
Speaker 1: into delicious dark chocolate from tough. It's possible. All things
Speaker 1: are possible. Well, this is how we get a Dove
Speaker 1: sponsorship on the podcast. But anyway, So, if you assume
Speaker 1: a super intelligence is using coherent extrapolated volition, that it's
Speaker 1: trying to determine what would be best for us, and
Speaker 1: working on its own terms towards those ends instead of
Speaker 1: relying on us to give it, you know what are
Speaker 1: obviously going to be imperfect instructions and commands. It might
Speaker 1: say predict. It might even correctly predict that the world
Speaker 1: would be a happier place overall if it did something
Speaker 1: bad to me. In particular, it might say, you know,
Speaker 1: from a utilitarian point of view, the world would be
Speaker 1: a much better place if it buried me in a
Speaker 1: pit of bananas. So better for everybody else, not so
Speaker 1: good for me, as is too much potassium. But once
Speaker 1: you have that piece of logic in there, and combine
Speaker 1: that with the idea of of timeless decision theory, you
Speaker 1: can arrive at this very troubling thought experiment. The dark basilisk. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the dark basilisk of the Abyss has two boxes
Speaker 1: for us as well, one contains endless torment, and all
Speaker 1: you have to do to claim that box is nothing
Speaker 1: or dare to work against it. Uh. The other box
Speaker 1: is yours if only you devote your life to its creation.
Speaker 1: And the prize inside that box well not eternal punishment,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty awesome gift, if we're to choose
Speaker 1: between the two. Right, Yes, I would agree with that,
Speaker 1: though I would say not tormenting somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 1: Should you think of that as a gift. That's probably
Speaker 1: not a gift that that's the baseline, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: but you're staring down the dark basilist here, and okay,
Speaker 1: it's boxes are horrible. Well one is just less horrible
Speaker 1: than the other. But the idea here is that just
Speaker 1: by knowing about the thought experiment, you've opened yourself up
Speaker 1: to that eternal punishment. Because now again your options are
Speaker 1: do nothing, work against it, or work for it, and
Speaker 1: only the third option will steer you clear of its Uh,
Speaker 1: it's you know, deadly dungeons. Now here's where the really
Speaker 1: supposedly scary part of it comes in. You could think, well,
Speaker 1: I'll deal with that problem when it arises. Right, So
Speaker 1: imagine there's some utilitarian supercomputer that's trying to even say
Speaker 1: it's trying to do good. Maybe it does. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have any malice. It just wants to save the world.
Speaker 1: But in order to save the world, it really needs
Speaker 1: me doing something different than what I want to do
Speaker 1: with my life. Well, I'll just make that decision when
Speaker 1: it comes up. What this thought experiment is proposing is
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't actually get to wait until it
Speaker 1: comes up. Maybe this blackmail applies to you right now,
Speaker 1: retroactively into the past. So just by knowing about the
Speaker 1: thought experiment, you supposedly have opened yourself up to eternal punishment,
Speaker 1: or increase the probability of such. So imagine a simplified version.
Speaker 1: Say I am a computer, and I am the only
Speaker 1: thing in existence with the power to prevent global climate
Speaker 1: change from destroying human civilization. I can stop it, but people,
Speaker 1: they took a long time to build me, and a
Speaker 1: lot of damage was already done. So the idea is
Speaker 1: I might reason that it is good to blackmail existing people,
Speaker 1: or simulations of existing people, or even past people, in
Speaker 1: order to make them devote everything they can to building
Speaker 1: me faster so I can save more lives in the
Speaker 1: long run. Of course, this incentive would have to apply
Speaker 1: to the past. Once I exist, I already exist, right,
Speaker 1: So the only way the past people would have an
Speaker 1: incentive to respond to this blackmail is if they predicted
Speaker 1: that this blackmail might occur and took the idea seriously
Speaker 1: and behaved accordingly. Right. So, thus the idea, the idea
Speaker 1: itself puts you at increased risk of being on the
Speaker 1: real or simulated receiving end of this a causal, retroactive
Speaker 1: blackmail if you know about it. And this is why
Speaker 1: this idea would be classed by some as a potential
Speaker 1: information hazard. And I'll talk more about the idea of
Speaker 1: an information hazard in just a minute. But one of
Speaker 1: the things I think a lot of people writing about
Speaker 1: this topic miss out on is they, for some reason
Speaker 1: get the idea that Rocco's post that this thought experiment
Speaker 1: on is is generally accepted as correct and plausible by
Speaker 1: Yudkowski and by the less wrong community, and generally by
Speaker 1: the people who put some stock in whatever these ideas are,
Speaker 1: timeless decision theory, coherent extrapolated volition, and all that, it
Speaker 1: is not widely accepted among those people. It was definitely
Speaker 1: not accepted by Yukowski. It was not and is not right.
Speaker 1: It is not the dark, deep secret of of less wrong.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, after the post came out, it was heavily criticized,
Speaker 1: and then it was banned. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people looking back on the idea have said, oh,
Speaker 1: that was not such a great thing to do, banning
Speaker 1: the idea, because it gave it this allure of like
Speaker 1: it was almost as if by banning it that made
Speaker 1: it look like the authorities had concluded that this idea
Speaker 1: was in fact legitimate and knowing about it would definitely
Speaker 1: harm people, and that is not the case, right. And
Speaker 1: it also, I mean it added to the forbidden fruit
Speaker 1: appeal of it too, right. I mean it's, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to know about this the pony up. I
Speaker 1: want to know, and now people are talking about it
Speaker 1: all over pop culture. I mean I have actually resisted
Speaker 1: the idea of doing a podcast on this before, mainly
Speaker 1: because not because I think it's seriously dangerous, but because
Speaker 1: I think, well, is there any benefit in talking about
Speaker 1: something that I think is very unlikely to have any
Speaker 1: real risks but in some extremely unlikely chance or what
Speaker 1: appears to me to be an extremely unlikely off chance
Speaker 1: could actually be hurting people by knowing about it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's like, what what is the upside?
Speaker 1: But at this point enough people who are listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast probably already heard about it. They're probably gonna
Speaker 1: hear about it again, and that, you know, sometime in
Speaker 1: the next few years, through pop culture whatever. It's probably
Speaker 1: better to try to talk about it in a responsible
Speaker 1: way and discuss some reasons that you shouldn't let this
Speaker 1: parasitize your mind and make you terrified. Right. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons we're talking about during October is because it
Speaker 1: is a suitably spooky idea. It is a troubling podict speriment,
Speaker 1: and we're leaning into some of the horror elements of it.
Speaker 1: But I also do really like making sure that we
Speaker 1: explain the mythic and folkloric origins of the Basilist itself,
Speaker 1: because the Basilisk itself is this wonderful mix of just
Speaker 1: absolute horror and desolation and just also just utter ridiculous nous.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it seems like one of the main
Speaker 1: ways that you defeat the mythic basilisk is through uh
Speaker 1: in a way, through humor running around with a chicken
Speaker 1: and a weasel and a crystal globe and realizing that
Speaker 1: it is truly a little king. So I think it
Speaker 1: is it's worth remembering the little king and talking about
Speaker 1: the great basilisk Well said. I think that's a very
Speaker 1: good point. But anyway, I did just want to go
Speaker 1: ahead and hit that caveat that. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: for some reason seemed to use this idea as like
Speaker 1: a criticism I'm not like a less wrong person, but
Speaker 1: as a criticism of the less wrong community, as if
Speaker 1: this idea is indicative of what they generally believe, and
Speaker 1: it's not. It was a heavily criticized idea within that community, right.
Speaker 1: It's like thinking that Whereles of London is the Warren
Speaker 1: Zevon song. You know, had had a rich discography with
Speaker 1: with many much better tracks in my opinion, it's just
Speaker 1: that's the one that got the radio play. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: what was that you You said that you saw something
Speaker 1: about this idea and a TV show. Now they're talking
Speaker 1: about it on TV. Yeah, so this is this is
Speaker 1: kind of fun because I think a listener had had
Speaker 1: brought up Rocco's Best List as a possible um topic,
Speaker 1: and you said, oh, I don't know if we want
Speaker 1: to want people knowing about it, And I well, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, but yeah, caveats. Okay, not because I think
Speaker 1: it's legitimately dangerous, but because what is the level of
Speaker 1: tolerance you have for talking about ideas that are not
Speaker 1: necessary to talk about and that represent a class of
Speaker 1: something that people could think was dangerous to know about.
Speaker 1: It might cause them terrors and nightmares and stuff. Right.
Speaker 1: So so my response to that was, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to look it up, not because I was afraid
Speaker 1: of it, because I'm thinking, well that it makes for
Speaker 1: a good podcast if, like Joe is telling me about
Speaker 1: it for the first time, whatever this idea is. But
Speaker 1: then I was watching HBO Silicon Valley and they explained
Speaker 1: it on Silicon Valley and I and I realized, well,
Speaker 1: the cats out of the bag there. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a character named Bertram Gilfoil who's a fun character. He's
Speaker 1: like a Satanist programmer love in Satanism of course, and uh,
Speaker 1: and he gets rather bent out of shape over the
Speaker 1: concept as it relates to the fictional Pie Piper Company's
Speaker 1: involvement with AI and he starts like making sure that
Speaker 1: he's created like essentially a paper trail and emails of
Speaker 1: his support for the AI program so that he won't
Speaker 1: be punished in the digital afterlife. Well, hey, this comes
Speaker 1: in again when we remember when we talked about the
Speaker 1: machine God in the Machine God episode where I've forgotten
Speaker 1: his name now, but the Silicon Valley guy who's creating
Speaker 1: a religion to worship artificial intelligence as god, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really love that. One of the
Speaker 1: things that comes out when explains his mindset is that
Speaker 1: he seems to be kind of trying to, in a
Speaker 1: subtle way, be like, look, you really don't want to
Speaker 1: be on the wrong side of this question, if you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You know you want to be
Speaker 1: on record saying like, yes, I for one, welcome our
Speaker 1: new machine overlords. I'm I'm expecting he'll buy a lot
Speaker 1: of our all health, Great Passilist t shirts at our store,
Speaker 1: available by put clicking the tap at the top of
Speaker 1: our homepage. Stuff to blew your mind dot com, Oh man,
Speaker 1: you are plugging like hell. But anyway, I'd say it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate the way this like single internet post and then
Speaker 1: all this fallout related to it played out because it
Speaker 1: lent credence to this scary idea. Even though the basketball
Speaker 1: scenario I think is implausible, and and the people of
Speaker 1: that community seem to think it was implausible. The idea
Speaker 1: may constitute sort of part of a class of what's
Speaker 1: known as information hazards, defined by the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom,
Speaker 1: who we mentioned a minute ago. Uh Bostrom has written
Speaker 1: a lot about or intelligence and information hazards would be quote,
Speaker 1: risks that arise from the dissemination or the potential dissemination
Speaker 1: of true information that may cause harm or enable some
Speaker 1: agent to cause harm. So this is not talking about
Speaker 1: the risks of say lies or something like that. This
Speaker 1: would be the idea that there's a statement you could
Speaker 1: make that is true or plausible that by spreading actually
Speaker 1: hurts the people who learn about it. And this is
Speaker 1: exactly the reason, as you're mentioning that's referred to as
Speaker 1: a basilisk. It can kill or in this case, increase
Speaker 1: the likelihood that something bad will happen to you if
Speaker 1: you simply look at it or know about it. And so,
Speaker 1: even though the idea is implausible, the dissemination of this
Speaker 1: terrible idea would seem if certain conditions are met to
Speaker 1: increase its plausibility. Right, you're increasing the incentive for this
Speaker 1: future AI to blackmail versions of you in the past,
Speaker 1: just simply by acknowledging the incentives could exist. Anyway, maybe
Speaker 1: we can get of this section for now. But I
Speaker 1: was just trying to work out, like, why have I
Speaker 1: been hesitant to talk about this on the show even
Speaker 1: though people have been requesting it. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's on TV shows, it's all over the internet.
Speaker 1: It's fine. Now the basilisk is out of the bag.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we come back. We'll continue our discussion and we're gonna
Speaker 1: discuss something that that a number of you are probably
Speaker 1: reminded of as we've been discussing this. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Pascal's wager. Thank thank you, thank Alright, we're
Speaker 1: back now, Robert. One of the things that this idea
Speaker 1: of Rocco's basilisk flows from is thinking about decision theory, Right,
Speaker 1: how do you make the best decision when you're presented
Speaker 1: with certain options? And there there's they're a little payoff
Speaker 1: matrices that people fill out where they say Okay, given
Speaker 1: these options, what actually would be statistically the best decision
Speaker 1: to make? But this is not the first time people
Speaker 1: have applied these kind of decision theory matrices. Two ideas
Speaker 1: about yourternal soul or your eternal well being, or the
Speaker 1: idea that you could be tortured for eternity. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: can go all the way back to Pascal's wager. For instance,
Speaker 1: technically one of three wagers proposed by French philosopher uh
Speaker 1: Blas Pascal is at the correct French that might be.
Speaker 1: I think I would just usually say Blaze Blaze or
Speaker 1: or Blassie one of the three old Blassie Pascal Blaze
Speaker 1: Pascal who through sixteen sixty two, and he argued that
Speaker 1: everyone is essentially betting h on the existence of God.
Speaker 1: The argument for theism is that if God does exist,
Speaker 1: then well there's an advantage in believing. But if God
Speaker 1: does not exist then it doesn't matter. But since we
Speaker 1: can't use logic to tell if God exists or not,
Speaker 1: there's no objective proof. We can only make our choice
Speaker 1: given the relevant outcomes. It's looking at your religious beliefs
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, you're nonbeliever, huh, hey, what have you
Speaker 1: got to lose exactly. Yeah, Pascal wrote, let us weigh
Speaker 1: the gain and the loss in wagering that God is.
Speaker 1: If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you
Speaker 1: lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation, that he is. Now
Speaker 1: I've got some things I want to say about this,
Speaker 1: but you had some stuff first. I think, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are there are a lot of issues that one
Speaker 1: can take with this based on knowledge of world religions, philosophy,
Speaker 1: statistical analysis, etcetera. And and yeah, I have to admit
Speaker 1: that it can start to break your brain though a
Speaker 1: little bit, if you think too hard about it, Like
Speaker 1: I found in researching this this podcast, really thinking about
Speaker 1: how I would react to Pascal's wager if I was
Speaker 1: like forced to make an answer to to to to
Speaker 1: formulate an answer like that, Like you mean, if you
Speaker 1: were given good reason to think that there would be
Speaker 1: punishments for not believing in God or something right, And
Speaker 1: but I didn't know which religion was correct, and I
Speaker 1: had to like proceed based upon the relevant level of
Speaker 1: punishment for unbelievers in various religions and like which one
Speaker 1: is most correct for like you just think that would
Speaker 1: mean it would what would be rational to choose the
Speaker 1: religion that has the most lurid hell, I guess, But
Speaker 1: then that really feels like losing, doesn't it? Um? You
Speaker 1: know it? It certainly though reminds me of the more
Speaker 1: boiled down versions of this that you encounter in various
Speaker 1: forms of Christianity. Right, except Christ go to Heaven, reject
Speaker 1: Christ go to Hell. But what about the people who
Speaker 1: have been given the choice yet? Right? That's ah, that's
Speaker 1: the other concern. Well, if they're all default hell bound,
Speaker 1: then God comes off as comes off as a bit bad, right,
Speaker 1: Like what kind of God is that? But if they
Speaker 1: have an out, if they're spared hell fire or at
Speaker 1: least you know, their section for Dante's limbo of virtuous pagans,
Speaker 1: then is the missionary doing them a disservice by even
Speaker 1: presenting them with the choice? Like why do you even
Speaker 1: ask me? Because now I have to I have to,
Speaker 1: I have to devote myself or not, Like now I
Speaker 1: actually have you know, I was just going to go
Speaker 1: into the uh, you know, default limbo category or the
Speaker 1: default heaven before and now now I'm actually at risk
Speaker 1: of hell. Well that means certain theories of damnation mean
Speaker 1: that presenting the gospel to someone as an information hazard.
Speaker 1: You potentially harm them immensely by telling it to them.
Speaker 1: And I think part of this just to to to
Speaker 1: go beyond like the the actual um wager here is
Speaker 1: I think a part of the issue here is that
Speaker 1: we're using evolved cognitive abilities that are that are geared
Speaker 1: for smaller, though often important choices, and here we're trying
Speaker 1: to use our imaginative brains to create a conundrum that
Speaker 1: can outstrip those abilities. Yeah. Well, I mean that is
Speaker 1: what we do in philosophy, right, We're constantly using our
Speaker 1: brains in situations it was not really made for um
Speaker 1: and just trying to do the best we can. But
Speaker 1: I mean it's quite clear that motivated reasoning is often
Speaker 1: a thing when we're trying to be rational, was just failing.
Speaker 1: But of course this is how we train our brains
Speaker 1: for rational thinking, often oftentimes exploring these various outsized ideas.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many ways. I think Pascal's wager
Speaker 1: kind of breaks down because it's obviously there's the thing
Speaker 1: you pointed out about there's more than one religion, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just like do I believe or not?
Speaker 1: It's like which one but it also it implies again
Speaker 1: this is like a theological question, but it would seem
Speaker 1: to imply that God can be tricked into thinking that
Speaker 1: you believe in Him if you simply pretend to. I
Speaker 1: guess Pascal had I think maybe a more sophisticated way
Speaker 1: of looking at this, you know that, like live as
Speaker 1: if God exists or something. But it but the wager
Speaker 1: is often used in very unsophisticated ways. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: implies that it doesn't matter to him what you actually believe,
Speaker 1: only what you outwardly claim to believe. Though then again,
Speaker 1: the funny thing here is this might be the case
Speaker 1: with Rocco's basilisk, Right, what would this machine? God care
Speaker 1: what was in your heart? It only cares whether you
Speaker 1: help it or not, or whether you, you know, proclaim
Speaker 1: fealty to it or not. Yeah, that's why the T
Speaker 1: shirt is important, Joe, because if it, if it knows
Speaker 1: you purchase that shirt, then you're you're square, You're covered. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As as best Singular pointed out in that Ian magazine
Speaker 1: piece of reference earlier, she says, quote, the secular basilist
Speaker 1: stands in for God. As we struggle with the same
Speaker 1: questions again, and again. So her argument is that we've
Speaker 1: kind of reverse engineer the same problem again through our
Speaker 1: contemplations of of super intelligent AI. Yeah, I guess the
Speaker 1: quay You get into a plausibility question here, right, You
Speaker 1: get into a question about is uh it actually possible
Speaker 1: to make an artificial intelligence that is functionally equivalent to God.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not thinking we could build an AI
Speaker 1: that would break the laws of physics. So it might
Speaker 1: be able to run simulations of the universe. They have
Speaker 1: cont you know, conscious agents within them maybe for all
Speaker 1: we know, and they could break the laws of physics
Speaker 1: inside them. But yeah, I mean could that even happen?
Speaker 1: And the issue is we don't know. We don't know
Speaker 1: whether that could happen or not. So should we behave
Speaker 1: as if that is a plausible thing to be worried
Speaker 1: about and to consider, or should we behave as if
Speaker 1: that's just not really something you need to concern yourself with.
Speaker 1: I don't know how likely or unlikely it is. And
Speaker 1: if your your fears are related just to the idea
Speaker 1: that you're you could be digitally resurrected, uh for torment
Speaker 1: and the bassilisks dungeons, Um, I mean that that, of
Speaker 1: course would depend on to what how much docuputing the
Speaker 1: idea of digital consciousness, and the whole philosophical question we've
Speaker 1: we've touched on here before is that you I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a copy of me, right, So why I
Speaker 1: mean I ultimately can't do anything about you know, a
Speaker 1: thousand different bassilisks creating a thousand different copies of me
Speaker 1: and tormenting all of them. Um, there's still to a
Speaker 1: large extent, it's just destroying me in effigy. There are
Speaker 1: actually a bunch of reasons I wrote down to doubt
Speaker 1: the plausibility of the bassilisk. We could do that now,
Speaker 1: or we could come back to that later. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you think. Yes, let's to do, but I
Speaker 1: will add the idea of being tormented digitally, This does
Speaker 1: become more dangerous. I guess if you believe you might
Speaker 1: be in a simulation right now exactly, then then things
Speaker 1: are a little more dire. But that's again that you
Speaker 1: might be that you might be, yeah, but I believe
Speaker 1: there's plenty of reason to believe that you are not. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if we're talking about how to defeat the basilisk,
Speaker 1: how to get out of this uh, this this prison
Speaker 1: of the mind. If you're feeling a little bit um
Speaker 1: um bleak of heart right now because of this idea,
Speaker 1: then Joe's got the remedy. Well, I'm not. These are
Speaker 1: not all the reasons you should doubt the basilisk, but
Speaker 1: this is some of them that I could think of.
Speaker 1: Number one depends on the creation of super intelligence, which
Speaker 1: I think is not guaranteed. Some people seem incredibly fatalistic
Speaker 1: about this is just absolutely inevitable. We will have super
Speaker 1: intelligent godlike AI that can do anything, and I think
Speaker 1: that that is just not guaranteed at all. I'm not
Speaker 1: ruling it out, but I think, for example, there's some
Speaker 1: theories of intelligence that say the prediction of super intelligence
Speaker 1: actually is maybe not taking seriously what intelligence is that
Speaker 1: you know that there are actually different kinds of intelligence
Speaker 1: that are useful in different ways, and machines can't mimic
Speaker 1: them all functionally, or can't mimic them all correctly, all
Speaker 1: at the same time. I don't know if that's correct,
Speaker 1: but that's at least one that's one hurdle it has
Speaker 1: to clear. Could get knocked down there. But okay, maybe
Speaker 1: we could create a superintelligence Even then, multiple aspects of
Speaker 1: the Rocco's basilisk scenario depend on the reality of some
Speaker 1: version of mind uploading, or the idea that your brain
Speaker 1: and in addition, your conscious experience could be simulated perfectly
Speaker 1: on a computer. And one reason it depends on this
Speaker 1: is that timeless decision theory operates on the assumption that
Speaker 1: the real you and the simulated copies that the computer
Speaker 1: uses to predict your behavior would be the same and
Speaker 1: would make the same decisions as the real you. Another
Speaker 1: reason is related to the punishment. Now, one way, of
Speaker 1: course you could imagine the great basilisk thing is that
Speaker 1: if the machine comes to power in my lifetime, it
Speaker 1: could just punish the real, physical, older version of me
Speaker 1: in reality is the payoff of this a causal blackmail.
Speaker 1: But the other way you could imagine it, in the
Speaker 1: way that it is much more often portrayed in the media,
Speaker 1: is that it makes digital copies of my consciousness and
Speaker 1: punishes them in a simulated hell. And that, of course
Speaker 1: would also depend on the reality of some version of
Speaker 1: mind uploading, or of the ability of a computer to
Speaker 1: simulate a mind and for that simulated mind to actually
Speaker 1: be conscious. As I've said, before. I'm suspicious of the
Speaker 1: idea of conscious digital simulations. I'm not saying I can
Speaker 1: rule it out, but I also don't think it's a
Speaker 1: sure thing. Any scenario that relies on the existence of
Speaker 1: conscious digital simulations needs a big asterisk next to it
Speaker 1: that says, if this is actually possible. Yeah again, is
Speaker 1: that me? Is that just me? An effigy? Is that
Speaker 1: thing actually conscious that you're tormenting? I mean, granted, it
Speaker 1: still sucks if there's a super intelligence creating digital people
Speaker 1: and tormenting and it's a dark, rancid dungeons in the future,
Speaker 1: but um, it's not necessarily quite the same as torturing me, right, well,
Speaker 1: if you just care about yourself. It also depends on
Speaker 1: the possibility that you could be one of these simulations.
Speaker 1: It's possible that you could not be one of those simulations.
Speaker 1: There's something that would rule it out. Maybe their type
Speaker 1: of conscious Maybe they could be conscious, but that consciousness
Speaker 1: is fundamentally different from yours such that you could not
Speaker 1: be one of them. Another big one, and this is
Speaker 1: a big one that uh, you know, like we said earlier,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes Yudkowski gets unfairly associated with the basilist
Speaker 1: as if he has advocated the idea, and he has not.
Speaker 1: He has said, you know this, this idea is trash,
Speaker 1: and uh, there there are many reasons to doubt it.
Speaker 1: But even but though he has said, like even though
Speaker 1: I doubted, I don't want it disseminated. Um, but he says,
Speaker 1: you know, a good reason to doubt it is there's
Speaker 1: no reason to conclude it's necessary for the Basilisk to
Speaker 1: actually follow through on the threat. We're saying that it's
Speaker 1: going to be relying on us to come up with
Speaker 1: the idea that it in the future might blackmail us
Speaker 1: if we don't help it now. In order to get
Speaker 1: us to help it now, right, we should be working
Speaker 1: and donating all our money and time and resources to
Speaker 1: building it as fast as possible, because we came up
Speaker 1: with the idea that it might torture us if we don't.
Speaker 1: Even if you accept that Yudkowski has he's pointed out
Speaker 1: that there's no reason, once it's built, it would have
Speaker 1: to follow through on the threat he's written. Quote. The
Speaker 1: most blatant obstacle to Rocco's Basilisk is intuitively that there's
Speaker 1: no incentive for a future agent to follow through with
Speaker 1: a threat in the future, because by doing so, it
Speaker 1: just expends resources at no gain to itself. We can
Speaker 1: formalize that using classical causal decision theory, which is the
Speaker 1: academically standard decision theory. Following through on a blackmail threat
Speaker 1: in the future after the past has already taken place,
Speaker 1: cannot from the blackmailing agent's perspective, be the physical cause
Speaker 1: of improved outcomes in the past, because as the future
Speaker 1: cannot be the cause of the past. Hey, basilist, why
Speaker 1: are you tormenting a third of the population for all eternity? Oh,
Speaker 1: I said I would. Well, yeah, I mean exactly, no,
Speaker 1: if it it didn't say it would, right, It just
Speaker 1: had to rely on the fact that in the past
Speaker 1: people would have come to the conclusion that it might.
Speaker 1: You know, you thought that I would. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to disappoint. But actually, if a basilist could be created,
Speaker 1: it seems like the best case scenario for it would
Speaker 1: be everyone subscribes to this idea and works as hard
Speaker 1: as they can to build it, and then it never
Speaker 1: follows through on any of the threats. Right, The best
Speaker 1: case scenario would be people act as if there is
Speaker 1: a threat, and then there is in fact no follow
Speaker 1: through on the threat. It's really a win win for
Speaker 1: the basilist. Yes, and then it can maybe you can
Speaker 1: even shed that name Basilist. They're like, we don't even
Speaker 1: have to call it the Great Basilist anymore. We can
Speaker 1: just call it, uh, you know, Omega or whatever it's
Speaker 1: its name is now. I want to be fair that
Speaker 1: a lot of what these people do is like the
Speaker 1: less Wrong community and all that they deal with, Like,
Speaker 1: should there be alternative of decision theories that guide the
Speaker 1: behavior of superintelligent aies. Maybe it doesn't use classical decision theory,
Speaker 1: maybe it uses some kind of other decision theory, and
Speaker 1: because on some other decision theory, maybe it could decide
Speaker 1: to actually follow through on the blackmail threat. I think
Speaker 1: that is where some of this fear comes through, that like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe by talking about it we are actually causing danger
Speaker 1: because maybe some other decision theory holds. But Yudkowski does
Speaker 1: not think that's the case. Also, one more thing, it
Speaker 1: depends on the basil list. So if you think this
Speaker 1: scenario could be real, it depends on it not having
Speaker 1: ethical or behavioral controls that would prevent it from engaging
Speaker 1: in torture. Yeah, and I think if thinkers like the
Speaker 1: you know, the Miria people, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute
Speaker 1: people succeed in established what they're trying to do is
Speaker 1: establish a philosophical framework to make AI friendly, to make
Speaker 1: it so that it is not evil and does not
Speaker 1: harm us. And if they successfully do that, then this
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a problem, right Because Yudkowski has argued that
Speaker 1: a being that tries to do what's best for us
Speaker 1: would not engage in torture and blackmail, even if it's
Speaker 1: doing so in service of some higher good, because doing
Speaker 1: torture and blackmail are actually not compatible with human values.
Speaker 1: I agree with that absolutely, and I actually would go
Speaker 1: as far to say I think that's something people should
Speaker 1: keep in mind when they're uh, when they're they're choosing
Speaker 1: their religions as well. Yeah, I can certainly see how
Speaker 1: you can make that argument. It's like, what do I
Speaker 1: love about my faith? Is that the blackmail and the
Speaker 1: torture or is there sometimes it brings something else to
Speaker 1: the table that is worth living forward, that makes life
Speaker 1: better for everybody, Like, like, I feel like that is
Speaker 1: what should be important about one's faith. Now, I think
Speaker 1: some people might be saying like, wait a minute, though,
Speaker 1: if you're just using utilitarian ethics, right, wouldn't wouldn't any
Speaker 1: methods be good if the if the ends justify the means, Right?
Speaker 1: That's I think a naive understanding of how people think
Speaker 1: about utilitarian ethics. If you want to bring about the
Speaker 1: greatest good for the greatest number of people, couldn't you
Speaker 1: do that by being really cruel and unfair to some
Speaker 1: smaller group of people? And I think generally there are
Speaker 1: versions of utilitarianism that say, well, actually, the answer there
Speaker 1: is no, you couldn't do that, because even though you
Speaker 1: might be bringing about some better material circumstance, it is
Speaker 1: actually corrosive to a society for things like that to happen,
Speaker 1: even if they don't happen to many people. Right, you say,
Speaker 1: what if I could make everybody on earth ten percent
Speaker 1: happier on average by say, burying somebody in a in
Speaker 1: a pit of bananas once a year, so that it,
Speaker 1: you know, buried to death with bananas. Even the people
Speaker 1: who are being made happier could very easily look at
Speaker 1: that and say that's not fair and it makes the
Speaker 1: world worse and I don't want it. And thus that
Speaker 1: actually would be a subjectively relevant state. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about AI risk on the show before, and you know,
Speaker 1: one thing I feel like I still have not been
Speaker 1: able to make up my mind about, despite reading a
Speaker 1: lot on the subject, is that I don't know whether
Speaker 1: it makes sense to take um to be super worried
Speaker 1: about AI super intelligence and the risks associated. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think it's worth taking seriously and thinking about.
Speaker 1: And I think people who want to devote their attention
Speaker 1: to how, you know how dealing with the control problem
Speaker 1: and how you would get an AI to do things
Speaker 1: that were good for us and not harmful to us,
Speaker 1: that that's fine work. And I don't ridicule the people
Speaker 1: who work on that problem the way some people do.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I worry if by focusing
Speaker 1: exclusively on sort of the machine god the super intelligence,
Speaker 1: were sort of ignoring um much more plausible and current threats.
Speaker 1: That the ways that AI is already very plausibly in
Speaker 1: a position to hurt us today or in the very
Speaker 1: near few future, and not depending on any outlandish assumptions,
Speaker 1: the way it's already and will soon be used as
Speaker 1: a cyber war weapon, the way it's hijacking our attention
Speaker 1: and manipulating our opinions and behavior through social media and devices.
Speaker 1: This is some of what our Scott Baker talked about
Speaker 1: with his fears about AI. You don't actually need super
Speaker 1: powerful AI to do a lot of damage. It just
Speaker 1: needs to manipulate us in just the right kind of ways.
Speaker 1: So not the great basilisks so much as all the
Speaker 1: little basilisks that are out there, the little grass snakes,
Speaker 1: grass with the tiny crowns, they can do a lot
Speaker 1: of damage. And again I just want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we should forget about super intelligence. People
Speaker 1: who are working on that. If you find that interesting
Speaker 1: that I think that's fine, Yeah, work on that problem.
Speaker 1: But there but I think it's a longer shot, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of current and near future AI threat
Speaker 1: that is really worth taking very seriously. I wish people
Speaker 1: more people were devoting their lives to say AI cyber
Speaker 1: weapons that are in development right now. One last issue
Speaker 1: I think we should discuss before we wrap up here
Speaker 1: is Okay, so we don't think this potential information hazard
Speaker 1: is actually an information hazard, Like, we don't think it's
Speaker 1: actually potentially that dangerous. But Yudkowski has made the point
Speaker 1: that even though he doesn't think the basilisk is plausible,
Speaker 1: the ethical thing to do with potential information hazards is
Speaker 1: to not discuss them at all, since it's possible that
Speaker 1: they may be Maybe maybe you're misinterpreting the ways in
Speaker 1: which they're implausible. Maybe this idea is actually valid, is
Speaker 1: actually relevant, and by spreading it you've harmed a lot
Speaker 1: of people. But I also think that this could mean
Speaker 1: that it's it's possible that despite the basilist not being plausible,
Speaker 1: something good has come out of the basilist conversation because
Speaker 1: it encourages people to think of the idea of information hazards.
Speaker 1: Maybe Rocco isn't true, but there could be other ideas
Speaker 1: that are both true and potentially harmful to be just
Speaker 1: by entering their minds. And the lesson from this is
Speaker 1: we should prepare ourselves for those kinds of ideas. And
Speaker 1: if you have discovered one of those ideas and there
Speaker 1: is literally no upside other people knowing about it, keep
Speaker 1: it to yourself and don't post it on the internet. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like I do encounter thought hazards like this
Speaker 1: from time to time that they're often presented in pamphlets
Speaker 1: or little booklets, UH, generally with you know, a clever
Speaker 1: illustration about the coming into the world. Actually brought some
Speaker 1: of these into the office recently. I found them at
Speaker 1: a park in rural Georgia, and uh, and I think
Speaker 1: I told you it's like, Uh, you have have a
Speaker 1: look at these. You may find them interesting, but UH,
Speaker 1: do destroy them when you're done, because you know I didn't.
Speaker 1: In the wrong hands. These thoughts can be dangerous if
Speaker 1: they have some sort of like a harmful view of
Speaker 1: society that that people may buy into. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you were comfortable sharing uh, malicious religious literature with me
Speaker 1: because you do not think there's a possibility that that
Speaker 1: literature is true and would harm me if I knew
Speaker 1: it was true, Like you think it is false, So
Speaker 1: to you, it's actually not an information hazard. It's just
Speaker 1: like an idea hazard. Uh. The real crazy thing would
Speaker 1: be if you came across a pamphlet and you read
Speaker 1: it and it's the equivalent of this raving malicious religious literature,
Speaker 1: except you were convinced it was correct. If it was
Speaker 1: more like that ring video I brought you exactly. That
Speaker 1: is one of the things I've often seen on the Internet,
Speaker 1: this idea compared to the ring. But you know, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I do have to I am reminded,
Speaker 1: you know that like the idea that that any kind
Speaker 1: of knowledge is forbidden or is secret, like that doesn't
Speaker 1: really jive well with with just the the general mission
Speaker 1: of science of course not yeah, but I mean that
Speaker 1: would be part of the problem of like we're not
Speaker 1: prepared for information hazards, right, because in the past it's
Speaker 1: been the case that almost anything that's true is good
Speaker 1: to spread, right, unless you're spreading lies. Information is good
Speaker 1: to share. It's just possible we should acknowledge that maybe
Speaker 1: there is such a thing as a fact that or
Speaker 1: a fact or an idea or a theory or something
Speaker 1: that is true and correct, but it would hurt people
Speaker 1: to know about it. I can't think of an example
Speaker 1: of anything like that. But if there is something like that,
Speaker 1: we we should be ready to not spread it when
Speaker 1: it occurs to us. All right, fair enough, Well, I
Speaker 1: want to close out here with just a one more
Speaker 1: bit of basilisk wisdom or anti Basilist wisdom, and this
Speaker 1: comes from the poetry of Spanish author Francisco Gomez de
Speaker 1: Gravado e Vegas five. This is translated and it's referenced
Speaker 1: in Carol Rose's Giants, Monsters and Dragons quote. If the
Speaker 1: person who saw you was still living, then your whole
Speaker 1: story is lies, since if he didn't die, he has
Speaker 1: no knowledge of you, and if he died, he couldn't
Speaker 1: confirm it. So I was thinking about that with the
Speaker 1: stories of the Basilist. Yeah, I was like, wait minute that,
Speaker 1: How would you know if you could die just by
Speaker 1: looking at something? How do we have this description in
Speaker 1: the book? Yeah, it's uh, there is a there's an
Speaker 1: authorship problem with this. Yeah, who's whose account is the basilist?
Speaker 1: But at any rate, I think it's a nice like
Speaker 1: final you know, sucker punch to the basilists in general,
Speaker 1: but also a little bit to the idea of the
Speaker 1: great basilisk. Right. I hope you were not leaving this
Speaker 1: episode with with terrors about future digital torment. I think
Speaker 1: that is not something that you should worry about. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about it, and instead of worrying about
Speaker 1: it yourself, you should head on over to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship where
Speaker 1: you'll find all the podcast episodes links out to our
Speaker 1: various social media accounts who find the tab for our store,
Speaker 1: you can look up that bathlist shirt design we're talking
Speaker 1: about and uh, that's a great way to support the show.
Speaker 1: And if you don't want to support the show with money,
Speaker 1: you can do so by uh simply rating and reviewing
Speaker 1: us wherever you have the power to do so. Big thanks,
Speaker 1: as always to our wonderful audio produce. Here's Alex Williams
Speaker 1: and Tory Harrison. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us to let us some feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: We're just to say, Hi, let us know whether you
Speaker 1: carry a weasel around In case of a basilisk encounter.
Speaker 1: You can email us at blow the Mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Oh I'm hearing that transmission again?
Speaker 1: That weird snap? What is that? Oh Hell the great bassilist.
Speaker 1: All Hell, the great basilisk. Oh Hell is a great basilist.
Speaker 1: Oh Hell, the great passilist. Hell there the great basilist.
Speaker 1: Oh Hell, the great basilist. Hell the great dassilisk. Oh Hell, good,
Speaker 1: great basilisk.