Isabel Millar - The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence

Book cover of The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence

The Palgrave Lacan Series

Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacans thought arguably only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a new generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original monographs and thematic, multi-authored collections. The books in the series will explore aspects of Lacans theory from new perspectives and with original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Lacanian theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society, politics, the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular concern, will work to expand our understanding of Lacans theory and its value in the 21st century.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15116

The Palgrave Lacan Series

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In 2010 on LessWrong forum, a user named Roko posited a thought experiment. He proposed that in a hypothetical future an all-powerful super-intelligent AI could retrospectively punish anyone who in the present time did not do everything in their power to aid in the creation of such a superintelligence. By merely entertaining the idea of such a being and not facilitating its development you would expose yourself to the possibility that it would deduce that you had not acted in accordance with the duty to bring it into existence (the moralistic tone of the experiment is enforced by the fact that the AI is paradoxically a benevolent one whose task is to protect humankind, and therefore those who dont facilitate its existence desire ill against their fellow men). The vengeful Abrahamic nature of the Basilisk meant that in future, it could recreate a simulation of you to torture for all eternity for the sin of putting him at existential risk. The Old Testament stylings of the Basilisk are clear: hes nice, but only if you deserve it.

As absurd as the tale sounds, it was met with outrage by the sites founder and director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) in California, Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky felt that Roko had opened a pandoras box of previously unimaginable torment that the poor readers of his blog would now fall victim to. In response to Rokos post he reportedly said:

Listen to me very closely, you idiot.

YOU DO NOT THINK IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL ABOUT SUPERINTELLIGENCES CONSIDERING WHETHER OR NOT TO BLACKMAIL YOU. THAT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING WHICH GIVES THEM A MOTIVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THE BLACKMAIL.

You have to be really clever to come up with a genuinely dangerous thought. I am disheartened that people can be clever enough to do that and not clever enough to do the obvious thing and KEEP THEIR IDIOT MOUTHS SHUT about it, because it is much more important to sound intelligent when talking to your friends.

This post was STUPID (ibid.).

The post was subsequently removed, and all talk of the Basilisk was banned from the website for over five years. But the Basilisk had already wreaked havoc among the forums readers many of whom had started to experience psychological difficulties. Paranoiac fears of the Basilisks future existence have now become something between an urban legend and a genuine topic of philosophical debate, not to mention the fact that it is taken seriously by some of the major tech entrepreneurs and scientists currently driving AI research. The logic behind the Basilisk is even (spuriously) backed up by Timeless Decision Theory and Bayesian probability.