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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7041 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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The situation is still "the experiment assistant knows they're speaking to Yudkowsky, not a potentially all-powerful AI, they stand to win money if they simply refuse to let him win, and they still let him win". It would require at minimum that the assistant willingly pretends they're actually in the scenario where an AI could torture them, and I don't recall that being in the terms of the experiment.

I think you're falling for magician-like deception and filling in some half-remembered details to make the "trick" sound more impressive than it actually was. The participant was expected to interact with Yudkowsky as if he was a (potentially all-powerful, once released) AI. The point of the experiment was to see if AI, in that scenario, could talk its assistant into letting it out. If the (presumably good-faith) participant agreed that they would have let it out, Yudkowsky wins.

The experiment wasn't about whether a random conversation with Yudkowsky could talk somebody into taking zero money vs. some money. He doesn't have super hypno mind control powers. I think. (Then again, it'd explain a lot about the Cult of Yud...)

Well, no, I never believed Yud had mind control powers. Maybe someone who's known for charismatic deeds, but not him. My theory was in fact that Yud's experiment assistants are too unusually AI-neurotic and weird to draw any conclusions other than "lesswrongers are afraid of being simulated".

Heh, you're right, that is also a possible explanation. Maybe I'm still giving him too much credit. ;)

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