I haven’t seen anyone explore the simplest answer: ignore acausal blackmail for the same reason you ignore plain old causal blackmail. “fuck you, that’s why”.
If blackmail doesn’t work, then no rational agent will attempt it. Further, no rational agent will follow through on a threat if there’s no causal chain to benefit the agent.
This approach can be made a little more formal with FDT/LDT/TDT: being the sort of agent who robustly does not respond to blackmail maximises utility more than being the sort of agent who sometimes gives in to blackmail, because you will not wind up in situations where you’re being blackmailed.
As I said, that argument is actually the most commonly presented one. However, there is actually a causal chain that would benefit an agent, causing it to adopt a Basilisk strategy: namely, if it thinks it is itself a simulation and will get punished otherwise.
Precisely. My argument was just that, depending on ones stance on anthropic reasoning, the fact that an actor is contemplating RB in the first place might already be an indication that he is in a simulation/being blackmailed in this way.
I haven’t seen anyone explore the simplest answer: ignore acausal blackmail for the same reason you ignore plain old causal blackmail. “fuck you, that’s why”.
If blackmail doesn’t work, then no rational agent will attempt it. Further, no rational agent will follow through on a threat if there’s no causal chain to benefit the agent.
This approach can be made a little more formal with FDT/LDT/TDT: being the sort of agent who robustly does not respond to blackmail maximises utility more than being the sort of agent who sometimes gives in to blackmail, because you will not wind up in situations where you’re being blackmailed.
As I said, that argument is actually the most commonly presented one. However, there is actually a causal chain that would benefit an agent, causing it to adopt a Basilisk strategy: namely, if it thinks it is itself a simulation and will get punished otherwise.
If Omega suggests you a blackmail, it calculated that there is some probability that you will accept it.
Knowing that you might accept it is different than following through if you don’t. Omega’s tricky that way.
Precisely. My argument was just that, depending on ones stance on anthropic reasoning, the fact that an actor is contemplating RB in the first place might already be an indication that he is in a simulation/being blackmailed in this way.