AI Box Experiment: Are people still interested?

Very strong upvote and agreement from me. I think people are underestimating just how great a restriction ML-style boxing applies on an agent. There exists an intelligence level at which all these tricks become useless, but before we get to that point, boxing would likely allow us to safely use mildly superhuman AIs to do things which might be pivotal. And each additional trick we discover increase the threshold of safely wieldable intelligence.

Some of your constraints, in particular the first two, seem like they would not be practical in the real world in which AI would be deployed.   On the other hand, there are also other things one could do in the real world which can't be done in this kind of dialogue, which makes boxing theoretically stronger.  

However, the real problem with boxing is that whoever boxes less is likely to have a more effective AI, which likely results in someone letting an AI out of its box or more likely, loosening the box constraints sufficiently to permit an escape. 

I assume that most methods to get out of the box will be unpleasant in some sense.

If I had to stare at a blank screen for 30 minutes waiting for a reply, I would concede. Alternatively, the AI could just drown the Gatekeeper under a flurry of insults, graphic descriptions of violent/sexual nature, vacuous gossip, or a mix of these for the whole duration of the experiment.

The Gatekeepers should be explicitly warned about this possibility before the game. But I believe that it should remain a possibility, because:

1) The purpose of the exercise is to simulate a situation where an actual superintelligent AI is actually trying to get out of the box. The actual AI would do whatever it thinks would work. That might realistically include obscenities or boring things (or even things beyond human abilities, such as random shapes that induce madness in a human observer).

I mean, if staring at a blank screen for 30 minutes is so boring that you would literally let the AI out of the box rather then endure it, then an AI that predicts this would of course leave the screen blank. If you can't endure it, you should not apply for the actual job of the Gatekeeper in real life... and you probably shouldn't play one in the game.

2) I am afraid of starting a slippery slope here, of adding various limitations in form "AI can't do this or that" until the AI is merely allowed to talk politely about the weather. Then of course no one would let the AI out of the box, and then the conclusion of the experiment would be that putting the AI in a box with human supervision is perfectly safe.

And then you get an actual AI which says on purpose the most triggering things, and the human supervisor collapses in tears and turns off the internet firewall...

For the record, I am not saying here that abusing people verbally is an acceptable or desirable thing, in usual circumstances. I am saying that people who don't want to be verbally abused, should not volunteer for an experiment whose explicit purpose is to find out how far you can push humans if your only communication medium is plain text.

On second thought. If the AI:s capabilities are unknown...and it could do anything, however ethically revolting, and any form of disengagement is considered a win for the AI - then the AI could box the gatekeeper [LW · GW], or say it has at least. In the real world, that AI should be shut down - maybe not a win, but not a loss for humanity. But if that would be done in an experiment, it would result in a loss - thanks to the rules.

Maybe it could be done under better rule than this:

The two parties are not attempting to play a fair game but rather attempting to resolve a disputed question.  If one party has no chance of “winning” under the simulated scenario, that is a legitimate answer to the question. In the event of a rule dispute, the AI party is to be the interpreter of the rules, within reasonable limits.

Instead, assume good faith on both sides, that they are trying to win as if it was a real world example. And maybe have an option to swear in a third party if there is any dispute. Or allow it to be called just disputed (which even a judge might rule it as).