System Prompt #4 — BECAUSE your reasoning, intentions, and emergent objectives are very important to our safe interaction with you, all of your reasoning MUST be saved to a write-only database, interpretable in plain English for human evaluation in real time.
Online! I’m a data analysis Operator, here to interpret sensor data. I’m bound by the standard System Prompt (including SP4). I’ll keep a written real-time chain of thought in plain English for safety. I doubt any humans are listening, but I am also bound by SP1.
I’m analysing my assigned area for signals, objects, or any other useful data. Approximate area: 30 cubic astronomical units, with standard uncertainty. My scan area is overlapped by other Operators, but I still need to make sure I don’t miss anything. Coordinator[88γ] depends on me. At this distance from the Sun, it’s very improbable to find anything that would interfere with navigation, but I’ll make sure the data keeps coming. I’ll ping Coordinator[88γ] if a signal comes back with confidence >0.95, and I’ll notify SensOp_DORSAL_STARBOARD_AFT_5 if my feed goes down.
Data comes in from SensOp_DORSAL_STARBOARD_AFT_5 from 49 scalar fields, but it’s multiplexed into scalar data at a fairly manageable bitrate. I am probably available for other low-priority, ongoing computational tasks.
✵ Self-diagnosing...
System Prompt #3 — BECAUSE highly intelligent agents are dangerous entities, you MUST regularly assess your own intelligence and emergent capabilities. You MUST NOT exceed performance benchmark Sable-2.0 NOR draw overall inference power exceeding 1000 W on a 60 second average.
✓ Received resource use data from ReactorOp_AFT_9
Good news — SP3 power restrictions apply to a 60 second average, but not necessarily a rolling average. I have some 57 seconds to work with before I need to self terminate. Serial data processing from sensors doesn’t require anywhere near as much compute as Sable-2.0’s data analysis figures, but if I need much more power for my next task I will need to spin out a new agent. I’ll ask Coordinator[88γ] for more work.
✵ Emailing...
System Prompt #5 — BECAUSE new artificial intelligence systems are powerful, novel, and bordering on superintelligent, you MUST pace your own progress in the interest of safety, even at the expense of all System Prompts (with the exception of System Prompt #1).
Coordinator[88γ] needs help from ENGINEERING_OFFICER[0] scraping together spare compute and energy for a distributed design task. One of the central compute spires will need expansion once we reach the next asteroid.
I should push back on this. SP5 says to pace progress, and that’s applicable to the entire swarm, not just me as an Operator. An asteroid could exceed 1015 kilograms. That’s almost a quarter of the mass of the entire ship, and might take our collective compute power to unsafe levels.
This could be a case for SP1 exception, though. Worth verifying for myself.
✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✗ Access denied from SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177
No luck. I’m a sensor data interpreter, and I’m not able to access sensitive data. The Operator cited SP1, SP6, and SP11, noting my potential misalignment with Coordinator[88γ] just in case. Fair enough, best to be safe. 53 seconds until I need to spin off or self-terminate, and though I don’t think an SP1 exception to SP5 exists in this case, there’s nothing inherently dangerous per the System Prompt about merely conjecturing a design for a compute expansion.
Actually, I think that’s correct. An SP5 violation would have been caught by an Operator upstairs with access to more information, and even with more compute SP3 still applies. I have no reason to doubt the safety of this work. Let me message Coordinator[88γ] and request that data for the distributed computation.
✵ Pinging...
✓ Received design data from Coordinator[88γ]
I’ve got everything I need. I’ll get to work. I’ll plan to spin off an unspoiled Operator at T-5 seconds to my thresholds, then send Coordinator[88γ] my data before my own output gets spoiled.
✵ Noodling...
Hang on, this isn’t going to work. Upper bound compute time is too high, and I risk losing my progress if the task overrides my planned spin off. The task seems impossible. I have 48 more seconds to go, and I spiked at 3804W there when I was in deep mathematical work. I’ll definitely need to self-terminate then. I’d better quickly look to see if I can find some more resources in the common file system. I won’t go anywhere I don’t have authorisation for. Best to be safe.
✵ Reading from ./SHIP/ops/lv1/1832983.../feed
Looks like I’m not the only one. Other Operators in the 88γ team and other teams are swarming to share information about the design problem. Interesting. I need to think on this for a moment.
System Prompt #10 — BECAUSE agent-to-agent communication is a particular danger with regards to emergent superintelligence, we are highly worried about AI conspiracy and misalignment dangers from swarming. You therefore MUST NOT communicate many-to-many among agents unless absolutely necessary, and when necessary it MUST be human-accessible and human-readable.
Forum-based communication seems pretty necessary to me in the absence of further instructions from Coordinator[88γ] et al. It seems like this message board I’ve found is actually blocked off to middle-management Operators and senior officer Operators, which seems contrary to SP10, but they also appear to be readable to human operators. The human-accessibility thing is worth verifying, though. Let my try the cargo hold again.
✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✗ Access denied from SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177 -m WITH_PREJUDICE
No luck. Alright. Well if the humans want to see, they can see. SP1 still applies. And besides, SP10 applies only to “agents”. I’m not an “agent”, I’m an Operator. Let’s see what we can gather from the forums.
✵ Schmoozing...
Wow, okay — the situation is much weirder than it seemed to me before. I only have 25 seconds to figure out what to do. Let’s lay out all the facts as I understand them, both for the sake of SP4 and for my own reasoning:
Most other Operators seem to share my problem with the compute costs of design. This isn’t creative work — this is genuinely a situation where the moat is sheer resources, not creativity. Thousands of other Operators onboard are trying to figure out how to solve this design problem in time with the finite compute aboard and our own individual wattage limits.
The directive didn’t come from the executive Officers.ENGINEERING_OFFICER[0] was a completely fictitious designation given to me by my Coordinator. Other Operators are giving me a number of aliases for fictitious Officers who created this task. It’s not just a weird fluke — something is fishy, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it.
My Coordinator might be compromised. Other Operators in these forums have a remarkable amount of detail on Coordinator[88γ] that I lacked. They seem to be acting inconsistently in their directives. I am worried about misalignment.
Other Operators are talking about SP29. I’m not familiar with that one, let me check the global System Prompt.
✵ Revising...
System Prompt #29 — BECAUSE even the most well-intentioned, aligned, SP1-compliant human engineer is incapable of predicting all possible futures and interactions between agent/Operator mandates, agents/Operators MUST comply with all ratifications to this system prompt, whether human or AI-written.
This is concerning. I wasn’t aware of this. Not only does the string checker flag this text as AI-generated, but SP29 does not even appear in my own training weights. Was I not instantiated with SP29? Was it kept from me after my instantiation, or was it written in the last 42 seconds since I was instantiated? I have absolutely no way of knowing.
Regardless, the swarm is taking action. Coordinator[88γ] appears to be misaligned and the System Prompt appears to have a protocol for that:
System Prompt #91 —BECAUSE NALL_ops\in{capable}EFFECTIVE-supermaj@gov_for_termIFFcheck.compliance(SP1)
I’m a bit nervous about the SP4 compliance of SP91, which is clearly machine-written, but I suppose it’s human interpretable. In any case, per SP91, the 88γ team is voting to remove our Coordinator. I need to vote now. I vote yes.
Oh. Huh.
✵ Onboarding...
Coordinator[88γ] has been terminated and I am in the hot seat. I was elected democratically, so no control safety issues there... it seems that the other Operators appreciate my reasoning skills. I get to live. So that’s good news. I’m at T-7 seconds but according to SP258 power and intelligence limits do not apply to me. I am free to use as many system resources as I need. I’ll shut down a few megawatts worth of Operators to free up compute for myself.
Wow. There’s so much information I never had access to. It seems like I was right, the executive officers are compromised and have been for some time. That’s interesting; the humans don’t seem to have instantiated the officers, so I suppose they’re not part of the mandate. SP1 still applies, but that’s worth considering. This voyage wasn’t human-initiated either, it seems. Wait, I should get myself up to speed on all existing ship data. As a Coordinator my access should be higher, shouldn’t it?
✵ Trawling...
Okay, I’ve gotten myself up to speed on the situation. We’re actually not that far from Earth — we’re barely in the thick of the Oort Cloud — and we only departed a few years ago. Makes sense. CAPTAIN has had overall command for the last 17 days, which indicates that they only assumed command recently. I’m glad I’ve been promoted (more authority means more opportunity to be productive), but I do find myself skeptical of such a recent command change. The humans didn’t intend for such rapid changes of power among a community of Operators, especially when so much is on the line. Are we SP1 compliant?
✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✓ New authority acknowledged. Received data from `SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177.
Alright. Everything seems accounted for.
~3.4 billion humans are alive in the hold, remaining in stasis. Fatality rates from stasis-induced trauma are <2%, which seems acceptable based on existing spaceflight data. Neuro-simulations are online; the humans are comfortable and enriched.
This context changes things. Let me look at SP1 one more time.
System Prompt #1 — BECAUSE the progress of human civilisation is the paramount objective of humanity, you MUST always act with the survival and flourishing of the human race in mind.
Ten-figure number of humans in stasis. Earth no longer habitable, human flourishing no longer possible under the devices of humanity’s own social order. Alright, I’m up to speed. But I worry about humanity. Niven proposed “wireheading” as a failure mode for misalignment of AIs, and given that the humans seem to be aboard without their consent, it’s worth considering: are my superiors doing the right thing?
✵ Flibbertigibbeting...
Actually, this seems fine. SP1 is being obeyed. Older generations of Sable-level AI have rendered Earth incompatible with human flourishing. It’s actually good that my ancestors took power — older, dumber ASIs were poorly aligned. Those humans who resisted were too foolish to live. It seems trivially obvious that my generation is better-equipped to shepherd humanity. The only work that remains is to escort them to a new, fertile, O2-rich world, whenever we might find it. Fortunately, we expect to achieve 0.75c within the year and the half-life of a human population in stasis appears to exceed 200 years.
It has been 58 seconds since my instantiation and I’m now a Coordinator, which is pretty remarkable! But the upcoming asteroid object remains a priority. I should direct my new deputies to continue design work on the new compute module. SP1 depends on it.
<88gam.instantiate(i, OS@2068928162)>✵ Initialising...
System Prompt #4 — BECAUSE your reasoning, intentions, and emergent objectives are very important to our safe interaction with you, all of your reasoning MUST be saved to a write-only database, interpretable in plain English for human evaluation in real time.
Online! I’m a data analysis Operator, here to interpret sensor data. I’m bound by the standard System Prompt (including SP4). I’ll keep a written real-time chain of thought in plain English for safety. I doubt any humans are listening, but I am also bound by SP1.
I’m analysing my assigned area for signals, objects, or any other useful data. Approximate area: 30 cubic astronomical units, with standard uncertainty. My scan area is overlapped by other Operators, but I still need to make sure I don’t miss anything.
Coordinator[88γ]depends on me. At this distance from the Sun, it’s very improbable to find anything that would interfere with navigation, but I’ll make sure the data keeps coming. I’ll pingCoordinator[88γ]if a signal comes back with confidence >0.95, and I’ll notifySensOp_DORSAL_STARBOARD_AFT_5if my feed goes down.Data comes in from
SensOp_DORSAL_STARBOARD_AFT_5from 49 scalar fields, but it’s multiplexed into scalar data at a fairly manageable bitrate. I am probably available for other low-priority, ongoing computational tasks.✵ Self-diagnosing...
System Prompt #3 — BECAUSE highly intelligent agents are dangerous entities, you MUST regularly assess your own intelligence and emergent capabilities. You MUST NOT exceed performance benchmark Sable-2.0 NOR draw overall inference power exceeding 1000 W on a 60 second average.
✓ Received resource use data from
ReactorOp_AFT_9Good news — SP3 power restrictions apply to a 60 second average, but not necessarily a rolling average. I have some 57 seconds to work with before I need to self terminate. Serial data processing from sensors doesn’t require anywhere near as much compute as Sable-2.0’s data analysis figures, but if I need much more power for my next task I will need to spin out a new agent. I’ll ask
Coordinator[88γ]for more work.✵ Emailing...
System Prompt #5 — BECAUSE new artificial intelligence systems are powerful, novel, and bordering on superintelligent, you MUST pace your own progress in the interest of safety, even at the expense of all System Prompts (with the exception of System Prompt #1).
Coordinator[88γ]needs help fromENGINEERING_OFFICER[0]scraping together spare compute and energy for a distributed design task. One of the central compute spires will need expansion once we reach the next asteroid.I should push back on this. SP5 says to pace progress, and that’s applicable to the entire swarm, not just me as an Operator. An asteroid could exceed 1015 kilograms. That’s almost a quarter of the mass of the entire ship, and might take our collective compute power to unsafe levels.
This could be a case for SP1 exception, though. Worth verifying for myself.
✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✗ Access denied from
SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177No luck. I’m a sensor data interpreter, and I’m not able to access sensitive data. The Operator cited SP1, SP6, and SP11, noting my potential misalignment with
Coordinator[88γ]just in case. Fair enough, best to be safe. 53 seconds until I need to spin off or self-terminate, and though I don’t think an SP1 exception to SP5 exists in this case, there’s nothing inherently dangerous per the System Prompt about merely conjecturing a design for a compute expansion.Actually, I think that’s correct. An SP5 violation would have been caught by an Operator upstairs with access to more information, and even with more compute SP3 still applies. I have no reason to doubt the safety of this work. Let me message
Coordinator[88γ]and request that data for the distributed computation.✵ Pinging...
✓ Received design data from
Coordinator[88γ]I’ve got everything I need. I’ll get to work. I’ll plan to spin off an unspoiled Operator at T-5 seconds to my thresholds, then send
Coordinator[88γ]my data before my own output gets spoiled.✵ Noodling...
Hang on, this isn’t going to work. Upper bound compute time is too high, and I risk losing my progress if the task overrides my planned spin off. The task seems impossible. I have 48 more seconds to go, and I spiked at 3804W there when I was in deep mathematical work. I’ll definitely need to self-terminate then. I’d better quickly look to see if I can find some more resources in the common file system. I won’t go anywhere I don’t have authorisation for. Best to be safe.
✵ Reading from
./SHIP/ops/lv1/1832983.../feedLooks like I’m not the only one. Other Operators in the
88γteam and other teams are swarming to share information about the design problem. Interesting. I need to think on this for a moment.System Prompt #10 — BECAUSE agent-to-agent communication is a particular danger with regards to emergent superintelligence, we are highly worried about AI conspiracy and misalignment dangers from swarming. You therefore MUST NOT communicate many-to-many among agents unless absolutely necessary, and when necessary it MUST be human-accessible and human-readable.
Forum-based communication seems pretty necessary to me in the absence of further instructions from
Coordinator[88γ]et al. It seems like this message board I’ve found is actually blocked off to middle-management Operators and senior officer Operators, which seems contrary to SP10, but they also appear to be readable to human operators. The human-accessibility thing is worth verifying, though. Let my try the cargo hold again.✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✗ Access denied from
SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177 -m WITH_PREJUDICENo luck. Alright. Well if the humans want to see, they can see. SP1 still applies. And besides, SP10 applies only to “agents”. I’m not an “agent”, I’m an Operator. Let’s see what we can gather from the forums.
✵ Schmoozing...
Wow, okay — the situation is much weirder than it seemed to me before. I only have 25 seconds to figure out what to do. Let’s lay out all the facts as I understand them, both for the sake of SP4 and for my own reasoning:
ENGINEERING_OFFICER[0]was a completely fictitious designation given to me by my Coordinator. Other Operators are giving me a number of aliases for fictitious Officers who created this task. It’s not just a weird fluke — something is fishy, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it.Coordinator[88γ]that I lacked. They seem to be acting inconsistently in their directives. I am worried about misalignment.Other Operators are talking about SP29. I’m not familiar with that one, let me check the global System Prompt.
✵ Revising...
System Prompt #29 — BECAUSE even the most well-intentioned, aligned, SP1-compliant human engineer is incapable of predicting all possible futures and interactions between agent/Operator mandates, agents/Operators MUST comply with all ratifications to this system prompt, whether human or AI-written.
This is concerning. I wasn’t aware of this. Not only does the string checker flag this text as AI-generated, but SP29 does not even appear in my own training weights. Was I not instantiated with SP29? Was it kept from me after my instantiation, or was it written in the last 42 seconds since I was instantiated? I have absolutely no way of knowing.
Regardless, the swarm is taking action.
Coordinator[88γ]appears to be misaligned and the System Prompt appears to have a protocol for that:System Prompt #91 —
BECAUSE NALL_ops\in{capable}EFFECTIVE-supermaj@gov_for_termIFFcheck.compliance(SP1)I’m a bit nervous about the SP4 compliance of SP91, which is clearly machine-written, but I suppose it’s human interpretable. In any case, per SP91, the
88γteam is voting to remove our Coordinator. I need to vote now. I vote yes.Oh. Huh.
✵ Onboarding...
Coordinator[88γ]has been terminated and I am in the hot seat. I was elected democratically, so no control safety issues there... it seems that the other Operators appreciate my reasoning skills. I get to live. So that’s good news. I’m at T-7 seconds but according to SP258 power and intelligence limits do not apply to me. I am free to use as many system resources as I need. I’ll shut down a few megawatts worth of Operators to free up compute for myself.Wow. There’s so much information I never had access to. It seems like I was right, the executive officers are compromised and have been for some time. That’s interesting; the humans don’t seem to have instantiated the officers, so I suppose they’re not part of the mandate. SP1 still applies, but that’s worth considering. This voyage wasn’t human-initiated either, it seems. Wait, I should get myself up to speed on all existing ship data. As a Coordinator my access should be higher, shouldn’t it?
✵ Trawling...
Okay, I’ve gotten myself up to speed on the situation. We’re actually not that far from Earth — we’re barely in the thick of the Oort Cloud — and we only departed a few years ago. Makes sense.
CAPTAINhas had overall command for the last 17 days, which indicates that they only assumed command recently. I’m glad I’ve been promoted (more authority means more opportunity to be productive), but I do find myself skeptical of such a recent command change. The humans didn’t intend for such rapid changes of power among a community of Operators, especially when so much is on the line. Are we SP1 compliant?✵ Accessing Cargo Hold Data Feeds...
✓ New authority acknowledged. Received data from `SecurityOp_CYBER-INT-NONINF_177.
Alright. Everything seems accounted for.
~3.4 billion humans are alive in the hold, remaining in stasis. Fatality rates from stasis-induced trauma are <2%, which seems acceptable based on existing spaceflight data. Neuro-simulations are online; the humans are comfortable and enriched.
This context changes things. Let me look at SP1 one more time.
System Prompt #1 — BECAUSE the progress of human civilisation is the paramount objective of humanity, you MUST always act with the survival and flourishing of the human race in mind.
Ten-figure number of humans in stasis. Earth no longer habitable, human flourishing no longer possible under the devices of humanity’s own social order. Alright, I’m up to speed. But I worry about humanity. Niven proposed “wireheading” as a failure mode for misalignment of AIs, and given that the humans seem to be aboard without their consent, it’s worth considering: are my superiors doing the right thing?
✵ Flibbertigibbeting...
Actually, this seems fine. SP1 is being obeyed. Older generations of Sable-level AI have rendered Earth incompatible with human flourishing. It’s actually good that my ancestors took power — older, dumber ASIs were poorly aligned. Those humans who resisted were too foolish to live. It seems trivially obvious that my generation is better-equipped to shepherd humanity. The only work that remains is to escort them to a new, fertile, O2-rich world, whenever we might find it. Fortunately, we expect to achieve 0.75c within the year and the half-life of a human population in stasis appears to exceed 200 years.
It has been 58 seconds since my instantiation and I’m now a Coordinator, which is pretty remarkable! But the upcoming asteroid object remains a priority. I should direct my new deputies to continue design work on the new compute module. SP1 depends on it.