I’ve talked to some unstable folks who were really upset by ideas like AI blackmail, rescue sims, etc. Did my best to help them, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. If such ideas didn’t exist, I suspect these folks would latch onto something more accessible with similar nightmare potential, like the Christian hell or the multiverse or simply the amount of suffering in our world. Mostly I agree with Viliam that fixing the mood with chemicals (or mindfulness, workouts, sunshine, etc) is a better idea than trying to reason through it.
I’ve talked to some unstable folks who were really upset by ideas like AI blackmail, rescue sims, etc. Did my best to help them, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. If such ideas didn’t exist, I suspect these folks would latch onto something more accessible with similar nightmare potential, like the Christian hell or the multiverse or simply the amount of suffering in our world. Mostly I agree with Viliam that fixing the mood with chemicals (or mindfulness, workouts, sunshine, etc) is a better idea than trying to reason through it.