The basic concept in both is what if a completely unprovable thing exists? If it does, it would behoove you to act as though it were real. Pascal's wager is what if god exists, Roko's basilisk is "what if god exists, but with blinky LED lights?".
Either way, completely useless. If you want me to believe in something, convince me of it, don't try to convince me to pretend to believe in it. I'm not hedging on metaphysical bets without evidence.
Mostly accurate, but the thing you're not mentioning is that both Pascal and Roko scared themselves with Big Numbers. In both cases, the cost for acting as a true believer is manageable, human scale, but the cost for the unbeliever is near infinite. So (their thinking goes), even if the existence of God or the omnipotent singleton AI is very, very unlikely, the rational thing to do is to behave as if they did.
Now, to an outsider, it's clear that you can imagine an infinity of mutually contradictory infinite threats, which makes these arguments totally bogus. But if you are already a true believer, you discount the other threats.
I'm not trying to argue about the concept, just saying that when you look at these things with a reductive lens, you can make anything the same.
The novel part of Roko’s basilisk is the time loop component where the AI doesn't exist in the present, but exists in the future and has the ability to manipulate events for itself coming into existence. It's kind of a dumb theory but whatever. It makes for a better movie than a TOE.
I guess I don't see how the novel part is particularly novel, it's just the shoehorn needed to turn "what if god could damn me to hell" into "what if future AI could damn me to hell"
Because it isn't metaphysical, it's science fiction/speculation and the "hell" isn't an other place/plane of reality. I guess this conversation could go in the direction that quantum theories allude to the same unexplained phenomenon as religions and could eventually meet. None of this is particularly interesting to me, honestly, so have a good night.
The basic concept in both is what if a completely unprovable thing exists? If it does, it would behoove you to act as though it were real. Pascal's wager is what if god exists, Roko's basilisk is "what if god exists, but with blinky LED lights?".
Either way, completely useless. If you want me to believe in something, convince me of it, don't try to convince me to pretend to believe in it. I'm not hedging on metaphysical bets without evidence.
Mostly accurate, but the thing you're not mentioning is that both Pascal and Roko scared themselves with Big Numbers. In both cases, the cost for acting as a true believer is manageable, human scale, but the cost for the unbeliever is near infinite. So (their thinking goes), even if the existence of God or the omnipotent singleton AI is very, very unlikely, the rational thing to do is to behave as if they did.
Now, to an outsider, it's clear that you can imagine an infinity of mutually contradictory infinite threats, which makes these arguments totally bogus. But if you are already a true believer, you discount the other threats.
Personally I chose to take Cthulhu's Wager seriously and went completely, irrevocably insane. IA! IA!
I'm not trying to argue about the concept, just saying that when you look at these things with a reductive lens, you can make anything the same.
The novel part of Roko’s basilisk is the time loop component where the AI doesn't exist in the present, but exists in the future and has the ability to manipulate events for itself coming into existence. It's kind of a dumb theory but whatever. It makes for a better movie than a TOE.
I guess I don't see how the novel part is particularly novel, it's just the shoehorn needed to turn "what if god could damn me to hell" into "what if future AI could damn me to hell"
Because it isn't metaphysical, it's science fiction/speculation and the "hell" isn't an other place/plane of reality. I guess this conversation could go in the direction that quantum theories allude to the same unexplained phenomenon as religions and could eventually meet. None of this is particularly interesting to me, honestly, so have a good night.