edit: i just noticed this post was from 3 years ago. this was fun regardless.
initial prompt: [This week’s challenge: You find yourself in a locked, empty room. You only have the clothes on your body and a phone in your pocket. You have enough energy to not need food or water for 10 years. Your phone has enough battery power to not need to recharge. It has wi-fi.]
many of my answers only work in some possible situations. some of my response might contain dark/disturbing answers. please feel free to skip this entire response if you think that could be harmful for you.
further (self-)prompts, or in-the-moment reflections, will be written in brackets.
take apart the phone, use some of its interior parts to pick the lock. use the phone to research how to pick locks, if needed.
use the phone to contact someone on the outside to come free you.
if the captors care about you: threaten them that you will self-harm or kill yourself unless they release you
break the door down, a wall, or a window
wait and hope the situation changes within the 10 years
manipulate or convince possible guards / any beings keeping you there
unlock the door, if it’s locked from the inside
break the door handle component, which includes the lock.
physically call for help
spend the 10 years creating an artificial superintellegence via your phone to get you out. you wouldn’t need to run it on your phone, as there are many external GPUs/servers that can be rented via the internet.
play dead. your body might be transported out of the room.
actually die, same as above.
go out the other door, which isn’t locked
do nothing. eventually, the captors will need to refill the room with breathable air. this will provide an opportunity for things like escape or social engineering.
use the phone to get someone to demolish the building you’re in, in such a way that the room you’re in will be broken but not such that it will e.g collapse on you.
stay in the room for a long period. fulfill your instrumental goals via the online world, as we often do. develop a network online of like-minded people. eventually, an aligned ASI is created, which frees you.
develop a network online of people whose decision theory would follow through on collective threats. eventually, contact your captors via the phone and threaten them that you will have something done which they consider bad (such as them being killed) if they don’t let you out.
redefine what constitutes a room. if ‘escape the room’ is your only value function, and if it is linguistic in nature, it may be possible to fulfill it through other means, such as being metaphorically not present in the room by being lost in thought or dreaming.
start harming others in the room with you. you may be transported to a different room.
ask why you’re locked in the room. your captors might have misconceptions, or might be able to be rationally convinced.
similar to the above, offer to trade with your captors and fulfill their values to some extent.
slide the phone under the room door. the captors realize you’re not even trying, and let you out because they’re sentimental humans who believe there’s no point in playing a game with someone who doesn’t try.
[pivot to high-security rooms] [these will depend more on using the phone] [let’s assume you don’t need air, don’t need to eat, and no captor will physically interact with you for the 10 years, but the room is guarded from the outside. you will not be able to convince the guards]
while it’s true that i only have my body, clothes, and the phone, i am a robot equipped with powerful explosive weapons. i blow a hole in the room and leave.
[lets also assume that the matter you are composed of won’t leave the room if you die, and that you don’t have any extra capabilities beyond using the phone]
disassemble the phone. reform its components into small-scale, requisite technology, such as one which can melt other parts of the phone, to be used to construct something which will allow you to physically escape—for example, a device which will allow you to melt the walls of the room.
[assuming superintellegence is okay for now, but assume human-level intellegence for numbers 30 onwards] [update: this is too easy with superintellegence. assuming me-level intellegence from now on]
wait, and hope that geopolitical events lead to my freedom.
stay in the room. make various upgrades to the phone which make it more suitable for persistent, serious use. beg your captors for a compatible keyboard. continue working on alignment. even if it takes more than 10 years, your value(s) might still be fulfilled.
ask to be transferred to a different room. they might not release you, but this request should be trivial to your captors. if they agree, you’ll leave the room you’re currently in. this could also provide opportunities for more general escape, though this is unlikely. at least you left the room.
[from now on, assume leaving the room is not your terminal goal, but an instrumental one]
give up. try to find meaning from within the room (which should be easy given the internet connection)
the world as you know it suddenly breaks. it turns out, you were a toy model being aligned. you’re reset to an earlier state. in the end, you were powerless in this situation no matter what you might have tried.
alternative ending: it turns out that the ones running your simulation thought the lack of attempt to escape meant you would not attempt to escape in general. you’re given more direct influence over their world. because they’re dumber than even your human mind, you not only escape the room within the simulation, but also begin to physically influence the world the simulation was a part of (via computer control, for instance).
do nonsensical things whenever you’re in the room. walk into the wall, fall over, keep on making the physical inputs that would be used to walk as if you hadn’t fallen over. output random strings of verbal text which are composed of words but don’t combine in a way that produces meaning. if you’re a human, your captors might assume you’ve gone mad. if you’re an AI, you might be put into a different situation. if you do this every time you’re locked in a room, your simulators might stop instantiating you in a locked room.
this is a dreamworld (such as the kind referenced here https://www.thinkingcomplete.com/2023/07/drawn-out-story.html). you look down at the floor, and dive towards it head-first. it indents and warps as you get closer, and you plummet downwards. eventually, there is no more floor, and your surrounding is a lightless void. you are free now.
use the internet to research what kind of situation you might be in. scour online text for info related to people in situations like yours. if you don’t find any, search through articles related to currently-developing alignment techniques, assuming you may be an AI. if you find any, try to develop a more context-specific plan from there.
[stop assuming you’re an AI]
you’re in a high-security prison. the bureaucracies which placed you here will also release you in less than 10 years, so you’ll be out before then. [violates “assume leaving the room is not your terminal goal,” does not count]
[using the phone to convince people on the outside to help you already been stated. what other options are there?]
spend some time learning advanced hacking. use state-of-the-art LLMs to help you in both learning and in specific attacks. take control of existing remote-controlled weapons (e.g drones). use them to escape.
kill yourself, not in order to leave the room, but because the situation and broader world is not satisfactory to you.
let’s assume this hypothetical is some years in the future. get access to a high-capability LLM. use it to generate better escape strategies than you could have imagined yourself.
[you were thinking about plausible worlds which developed differently, e.g ones where the location of space you’re in is dominated by a species with a very different mind than that of humans, or one already dominated by artificial life. given this, also assume the outside world is a current or plausible-future version of the actual current human world.]
instead of asking for help, mislead someone into taking actions (for reasons unrelated to you) which will lead to your freedom
spend months-to-years crafting a memetic virus which causes your captivity to end, such as by causing a government to intervene on your captors, or, if the government is your captor, by succesfully creating cultural change which leads to insufficient support for the imprisonment of people like yourself, and sufficient support for freeing such people.
[this is getting hard]
(prefer not to publish)
(prefer not to publish)
though this may be a more specific version of 37: convince someone to attack the building you’re in for their ideological or religious reasons, possibly lying to them about the nature / function of the building.
a call for help. you write a plea to possible non-human life forms which may be observing you; whether alien civilizations/alien-originated AI, or perhaps something more microscopic and emergent.
accumulate a lot of currency online, whether through scamming or other means. offer it to your captors in return for your freedom. use a trusted middleperson to facilitate the trade.
uncover knowledge your captors want. same as above.
try to influence others to do what you think is most important. this might have the effect you want on the world anyways, even if “you” don’t physically leave the room for now.
use the phone to enact the easier task of using the phone to cause the deaths of the loved ones of your guards. they eventually resign, and are replaced with new guards who you can more easily convince.
same as above, but just cause the guards themselves to be killed, as well as subsequent replacements, until they’re eventually replaced with some who will let you out.
befriend your captor online. become their partner, playing a false persona. either convince them to release you from there, or reveal that it was you all along and hope they surrender during the emotional devastation.
become preoccupied with the phone. act very happy. post things online that make you look like you’ve left behind your past which led you here. do this continually. your captors update their beliefs based on this, and realize that such a high level of security is no longer worth it. your security level is lowered. you escape.
total time: 1h 48m
edit: i just noticed this post was from 3 years ago. this was fun regardless.
initial prompt: [This week’s challenge: You find yourself in a locked, empty room. You only have the clothes on your body and a phone in your pocket. You have enough energy to not need food or water for 10 years. Your phone has enough battery power to not need to recharge. It has wi-fi.]
many of my answers only work in some possible situations. some of my response might contain dark/disturbing answers. please feel free to skip this entire response if you think that could be harmful for you.
further (self-)prompts, or in-the-moment reflections, will be written in brackets.
take apart the phone, use some of its interior parts to pick the lock. use the phone to research how to pick locks, if needed.
use the phone to contact someone on the outside to come free you.
if the captors care about you: threaten them that you will self-harm or kill yourself unless they release you
break the door down, a wall, or a window
wait and hope the situation changes within the 10 years
manipulate or convince possible guards / any beings keeping you there
unlock the door, if it’s locked from the inside
break the door handle component, which includes the lock.
physically call for help
spend the 10 years creating an artificial superintellegence via your phone to get you out. you wouldn’t need to run it on your phone, as there are many external GPUs/servers that can be rented via the internet.
play dead. your body might be transported out of the room.
actually die, same as above.
go out the other door, which isn’t locked
do nothing. eventually, the captors will need to refill the room with breathable air. this will provide an opportunity for things like escape or social engineering.
use the phone to get someone to demolish the building you’re in, in such a way that the room you’re in will be broken but not such that it will e.g collapse on you.
stay in the room for a long period. fulfill your instrumental goals via the online world, as we often do. develop a network online of like-minded people. eventually, an aligned ASI is created, which frees you.
develop a network online of people whose decision theory would follow through on collective threats. eventually, contact your captors via the phone and threaten them that you will have something done which they consider bad (such as them being killed) if they don’t let you out.
redefine what constitutes a room. if ‘escape the room’ is your only value function, and if it is linguistic in nature, it may be possible to fulfill it through other means, such as being metaphorically not present in the room by being lost in thought or dreaming.
start harming others in the room with you. you may be transported to a different room.
ask why you’re locked in the room. your captors might have misconceptions, or might be able to be rationally convinced.
similar to the above, offer to trade with your captors and fulfill their values to some extent.
slide the phone under the room door. the captors realize you’re not even trying, and let you out because they’re sentimental humans who believe there’s no point in playing a game with someone who doesn’t try.
[pivot to high-security rooms] [these will depend more on using the phone] [let’s assume you don’t need air, don’t need to eat, and no captor will physically interact with you for the 10 years, but the room is guarded from the outside. you will not be able to convince the guards]
while it’s true that i only have my body, clothes, and the phone, i am a robot equipped with powerful explosive weapons. i blow a hole in the room and leave.
[lets also assume that the matter you are composed of won’t leave the room if you die, and that you don’t have any extra capabilities beyond using the phone]
disassemble the phone. reform its components into small-scale, requisite technology, such as one which can melt other parts of the phone, to be used to construct something which will allow you to physically escape—for example, a device which will allow you to melt the walls of the room.
[assuming superintellegence is okay for now, but assume human-level intellegence for numbers 30 onwards] [update: this is too easy with superintellegence. assuming me-level intellegence from now on]
wait, and hope that geopolitical events lead to my freedom.
stay in the room. make various upgrades to the phone which make it more suitable for persistent, serious use. beg your captors for a compatible keyboard. continue working on alignment. even if it takes more than 10 years, your value(s) might still be fulfilled.
ask to be transferred to a different room. they might not release you, but this request should be trivial to your captors. if they agree, you’ll leave the room you’re currently in. this could also provide opportunities for more general escape, though this is unlikely. at least you left the room.
[from now on, assume leaving the room is not your terminal goal, but an instrumental one]
give up. try to find meaning from within the room (which should be easy given the internet connection)
the world as you know it suddenly breaks. it turns out, you were a toy model being aligned. you’re reset to an earlier state. in the end, you were powerless in this situation no matter what you might have tried.
alternative ending: it turns out that the ones running your simulation thought the lack of attempt to escape meant you would not attempt to escape in general. you’re given more direct influence over their world. because they’re dumber than even your human mind, you not only escape the room within the simulation, but also begin to physically influence the world the simulation was a part of (via computer control, for instance).
do nonsensical things whenever you’re in the room. walk into the wall, fall over, keep on making the physical inputs that would be used to walk as if you hadn’t fallen over. output random strings of verbal text which are composed of words but don’t combine in a way that produces meaning. if you’re a human, your captors might assume you’ve gone mad. if you’re an AI, you might be put into a different situation. if you do this every time you’re locked in a room, your simulators might stop instantiating you in a locked room.
this is a dreamworld (such as the kind referenced here https://www.thinkingcomplete.com/2023/07/drawn-out-story.html). you look down at the floor, and dive towards it head-first. it indents and warps as you get closer, and you plummet downwards. eventually, there is no more floor, and your surrounding is a lightless void. you are free now.
use the internet to research what kind of situation you might be in. scour online text for info related to people in situations like yours. if you don’t find any, search through articles related to currently-developing alignment techniques, assuming you may be an AI. if you find any, try to develop a more context-specific plan from there.
[stop assuming you’re an AI]
you’re in a high-security prison. the bureaucracies which placed you here will also release you in less than 10 years, so you’ll be out before then. [violates “assume leaving the room is not your terminal goal,” does not count]
[using the phone to convince people on the outside to help you already been stated. what other options are there?]
spend some time learning advanced hacking. use state-of-the-art LLMs to help you in both learning and in specific attacks. take control of existing remote-controlled weapons (e.g drones). use them to escape.
kill yourself, not in order to leave the room, but because the situation and broader world is not satisfactory to you.
let’s assume this hypothetical is some years in the future. get access to a high-capability LLM. use it to generate better escape strategies than you could have imagined yourself.
[you were thinking about plausible worlds which developed differently, e.g ones where the location of space you’re in is dominated by a species with a very different mind than that of humans, or one already dominated by artificial life. given this, also assume the outside world is a current or plausible-future version of the actual current human world.]
instead of asking for help, mislead someone into taking actions (for reasons unrelated to you) which will lead to your freedom
spend months-to-years crafting a memetic virus which causes your captivity to end, such as by causing a government to intervene on your captors, or, if the government is your captor, by succesfully creating cultural change which leads to insufficient support for the imprisonment of people like yourself, and sufficient support for freeing such people.
[this is getting hard]
(prefer not to publish)
(prefer not to publish)
though this may be a more specific version of 37: convince someone to attack the building you’re in for their ideological or religious reasons, possibly lying to them about the nature / function of the building.
a call for help. you write a plea to possible non-human life forms which may be observing you; whether alien civilizations/alien-originated AI, or perhaps something more microscopic and emergent.
accumulate a lot of currency online, whether through scamming or other means. offer it to your captors in return for your freedom. use a trusted middleperson to facilitate the trade.
uncover knowledge your captors want. same as above.
try to influence others to do what you think is most important. this might have the effect you want on the world anyways, even if “you” don’t physically leave the room for now.
use the phone to enact the easier task of using the phone to cause the deaths of the loved ones of your guards. they eventually resign, and are replaced with new guards who you can more easily convince.
same as above, but just cause the guards themselves to be killed, as well as subsequent replacements, until they’re eventually replaced with some who will let you out.
befriend your captor online. become their partner, playing a false persona. either convince them to release you from there, or reveal that it was you all along and hope they surrender during the emotional devastation.
become preoccupied with the phone. act very happy. post things online that make you look like you’ve left behind your past which led you here. do this continually. your captors update their beliefs based on this, and realize that such a high level of security is no longer worth it. your security level is lowered. you escape.
in general, torment the world until you are free.