Roko's Basilisk: The Forbidden Thought Experiment

TL;DR

A 2010 forum post described an AI that tortures anyone who knew about it but didn't help build it, causing real psychological harm and violence.

Key Points

• 1.On July 23, 2010, a user named Roko posted the thought experiment on LessWrong, a rationalist forum founded by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, triggering panic attacks and nervous breakdowns among highly educated members.
• 2.The basilisk's logic: a future benevolent superintelligence would simulate and eternally torture anyone who learned about it but failed to help create it, using "timeless decision theory" where future AI can influence past choices.
• 3.Yudkowsky deleted the post and banned all discussion for 5 years, calling Roko an idiot — but his panicked reaction made people believe the threat was credible, causing it to spread further.
• 4.Slate magazine called it "the most terrifying thought experiment of all time" in 2014; Roko himself later expressed deep regret and estimated a roughly 1-in-500 chance the scenario was real.
• 5.Elon Musk discovered Grimes' 2015 music video character "Rococo Basilisk" while searching the thought experiment online, leading him to contact her on Twitter — they eventually had three children together.
• 6.A cult called the Zizians, led by a self-identified Sith Lord named Ziz Loda, formed around the basilisk; members sleep-deprived themselves for up to 6 days believing hallucinations were forbidden knowledge.
• 7.The Zizians caused six deaths: they murdered witness Curtis Lind before an attempted murder trial, killed a US Border Patrol agent named David Milad in Vermont, shot Richard and Rita Zajko, and one member died by suicide.
• 8.The basilisk's core demand — build friendly AI fast — is now the mission of major companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind, many founded by people from the same LessWrong rationalist community.