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I asked Claude Sonnet 3.5.

Nathan : I dislike the term sacrifice since it implies a knowing deliberate choice to give up something, specifically for a ceremonial purpose. I think this intentionality is importantly absent in these race dynamics. Indeed, all the parties realizing the nature of the pattern they are in is often the first step to escaping it.

Claude: You make an excellent point. The term "sacrifice" does indeed carry connotations of intentionality and ceremony that are not accurate for this dynamic. You're right to highlight that the lack of awareness is often a crucial part of the problem. Let's reconsider our options with this in mind:

1. Race-based terms:

   • "Destructive Race Dynamic"
   • "Race to Ruin"
   • "Competitive Decline Spiral"

2. Trap-based terms:

   • "Mutual Depletion Trap"
   • "Collective Erosion Trap"
   • "Competitive Degradation Trap"

3. Equilibrium-based terms:

   • "Negative Equilibrium Dynamic"
   • "Deteriorating Equilibrium Trap"
   • "Suboptimal Stability Trap"

4. Feedback-based terms:

   • "Negative Feedback Loop"
   • "Destructive Feedback Cycle"
   • "Erosive Competition Cycle"

5. Other options:

   • "Collective Value Decay"
   • "Competitive Devaluation Dynamic"
   • "Mutual Loss Spiral"
   • "Unintentional Decline Pattern"

These alternatives avoid the implication of intentional sacrifice while still capturing the essence of the dynamic. They emphasize the unintended, gradual nature of the decline and the trapped state of the participants.

Among these, I find "Competitive Decline Spiral" particularly effective. It captures the competitive nature, the worsening situation over time, and avoids any implication of intentionality. "Mutual Depletion Trap" is another strong contender, emphasizing the trapped nature of the situation and the mutual loss without suggesting deliberate action.

"Unintentional Decline Pattern" might be the most explicit in addressing your concern about avoiding implied intentionality, though it's a bit longer and less punchy than some other options.

a method to induce male stem cells to lose their Y chromosome and duplicate the X chromosome, thus becoming female.

If you had twin fertilised eggs, could you use this method to create almost-genetically-identical opposite-sex twins? Which would supposedly let you isolate the effects of sex on the individual?

a method to induce male stem cells to lose their Y chromosome and duplicate the X chromosome, thus becoming female.

If you had twin fertilised eggs, could you use this method to create almost-genetically-identical opposite-sex twins? Which would supposedly let you isolate the effects of sex on the individual?

Always try to have 3 hypotheses

This one is important enough to be it's own post.

Duncan Sabien's Split and Commit [LW · GW] would seem to be cover (large?) parts of that.

find some way to argue that "generally intelligent world-optimizing agents" and "subjects of AGI-doom arguments" are not the exact same type of system

We could maybe weaken this requirement? Perhaps it would suffice to show/argue that it's feasible^[1] to build any kind of "acute risk period -ending AI"^[2] that is not a "subject of AGI-doom arguments"?

I'd be (very) curious to see such arguments. ^[3]

Yeah, I think I agree with this. Do you have an idea for a name that captures this dynamic? Do you think one of the names I or Legionnaire [LW(p) · GW(p)] suggested captures it?

Right, and I disagree with the usual computational theory of mind (at least with respect to "consciousness" and "the self"), according to which the mind is a kind of virtual state machine whose microphysical details are irrelevant. There are sorites problems and binding problems which arise if you want to get consciousness and the self from physically coarse-grained states, which is why I look for explanations based in exact microphysical properties and irreducible complex entities instead. 

I, similarly, am pretty sure I had a lot of conformist-ish biases that prevented me from seriously considering lines of argument like this one.

Like, I'm certainly not entirely sure how strong this (and related) reasoning is, but it's definitely something one ought to seriously think about.

(I don't think current models are sentient, but the way of thinking "they are digital, so it's totally OK to torture them" is utterly insane and evil)

I don't think the trailer is saying that. It's just showing people examples of what you can do, and what the NPCs can do. Then it's up to the player to decide how to treat the NPCs. AIpeople is creating the platform. The users will decide whether to make Torment Nexi.

At the end of the trailer, the NPCs are conspiring to escape the simulation. I wonder how that is going to be implemented in game terms.

I notice that there also exists a cryptocoin called AIPEOPLE, and a Russian startup based in Cyprus with the domain aipeople dot ru. I do not know if these have anything to do with the AIpeople game. The game itself is made by Keen Software House. They are based in Prague together with their sister company GoodAI.

I don't think wireheading is "myopic" when it overlaps with self-maintenance. Classic example would be painkillers; they do ~nothing but make you "feel good now" (or at least less bad), but sometimes feeling less bad is necessary to function properly and achieve long-term value. I think that gratitude journaling is also part of this overlap area. That said I don't know many peoples' experiences with it so maybe it's more prone to "abuse" than I expect.