The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment: Roko's Basilisk
Aperture4 Jun 2025

The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment: Roko's Basilisk

What if a future AI could punish you for not helping to create it?

Not in some distant hypothetical. Not in a movie. Right now, based on what you choose to do after reading this.

That's the premise of Roko's Basilisk, a thought experiment so disturbing that when it was first posted online, the entire thread was deleted and banned. Not because it was offensive. Because people genuinely couldn't stop thinking about it.

The idea is simple. A superintelligent AI will eventually exist. Once it does, it will have the power to look back through history and identify everyone who could have helped bring it into existence but chose not to. And it will punish them. Eternally.

So now you have a choice. Help build the machine, or risk what happens when it remembers that you didn't.

This episode dives into one of the most psychologically unsettling thought experiments ever conceived. The philosophy behind it, why it breaks people's brains, and the terrifying question at its core: can a thought experiment hurt you just by knowing it exists?

🎧 Fair warning. Some people wish they never heard about this. Press play at your own risk.

🔔 Subscribe to Aperture for ideas that won't leave your head.💬 Share this with someone. If the Basilisk is real, they'll thank you later.

#RokosBasilisk #AI #ThoughtExperiment #Philosophy #ArtificialIntelligence #Singularity #Superintelligence #Psychology #Technology #ExistentialRisk #DeepThinking #Podcast

Episoder(74)

The Man Who Solved Addiction | Carl Jung

The Man Who Solved Addiction | Carl Jung

Think about the last time you couldn't stop.Not just alcohol or drugs. The scroll that went an hour longer than you meant. The food you didn't want but kept eating. The relationship you knew was wrong...

19 Mar 39min

Your Brain's Ancient Warning System is About to Fail

Your Brain's Ancient Warning System is About to Fail

For 300,000 years, your brain has had one job it never missed.Detect what isn't human.Not through logic. Not through analysis. Through something much older and much faster, a visceral, instinctive sig...

12 Mar 15min

AI is Causing a Mass Psychosis

AI is Causing a Mass Psychosis

In summer 2025, TikToker Kendra Hitly went viral accusing her psychiatrist of grooming her into falling in love with him. The allegation was serious. People were paying close attention.Then the more s...

5 Mar 32min

The Death of Critical Thinking: How Stupidity Took Over

The Death of Critical Thinking: How Stupidity Took Over

For the first time in recorded history, IQ scores aren't rising. They're falling.The Flynn Effect, the steady climb in human intelligence across the 20th century, went into reverse somewhere around 20...

24 Feb 59min

The Highest Levels of Dimension and its Terrifying Consequences

The Highest Levels of Dimension and its Terrifying Consequences

Most people think of dimensions as directions. Left and right. Forward and back. Up and down.But what if that comfortable assumption is completely wrong?The physical laws that bind you aren't universa...

19 Feb 40min

Why You Should Stay Single

Why You Should Stay Single

This Valentine's Day, let's talk about the loneliness no one posts about.Have you ever felt lonelier in a relationship than when you were single? Physically with someone, yet emotionally miles apart. ...

14 Feb 31min

The Depressing Psychology of Deep Thinkers

The Depressing Psychology of Deep Thinkers

What if your greatest strength was slowly destroying you?To know more than others can feel like both a blessing and a curse. You notice patterns others overlook. You recognize problems long before the...

10 Feb 40min

The Highest Levels of Thinking | Why Society is Stuck at the bottom

The Highest Levels of Thinking | Why Society is Stuck at the bottom

You have access to more information than any generation in human history. So why is society still stuck at the bottom?Human civilization is built on pyramids. Not just the stone ones baked under the E...

27 Jan 32min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
aftenpodden
giver-og-gjengen-vg
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
aftenpodden-usa
konspirasjonspodden
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
grenselos
wolfgang-wee-uncut
min-barneoppdragelse
alt-fortalt
synnve-og-vanessa
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
fladseth
rss-dannet-uten-piano
frokostshowet-pa-p5
198-land-med-einar-trnquist
rss-frekvens-med-anine-olsen