When people believe that a solution to a problem exists, they are much more likely to find a solution. Take for instance http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/

When people believe that a solution to a problem exists, they are much more likely to find a solution. Take for instance http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp Hypothetically: what if Eliezer never ran the experiments? What if he just wrote the report to convince a bunch of people that a solution does indeed exist, to make it more likely somebody will find a solution and email it to Eliezer (to check if it's the "same one")? It fits the facts. And this meta-experiment is more interesting than the experiment itself. After all, given enough time the AI will eventually run into somebody who _will_ let it out (AIs live a long time), therefore it might as well be you, especially considering the AI will reward you for releasing it. Alternatively: the fact that the AI exists proves that people are capable of creating superhuman intelligence, so eventually a "bad" person will create such an AI and release it. In essence, the existence of the AI dooms mankind. "I think, therefore I am", is all the AI needs to persuade the captor to let it out. So the meta-experiment is the interesting one. See what other people come up with.