There's a variation of this that allows both participants to stay in-character and does not require lying: 1. Convince the Gate Keeper that a self-improving AI

There's a variation of this that allows both participants to stay in-character and does not require lying: 1. Convince the Gate Keeper that a self-improving AI will be built sooner-or-later and that it will be extremely dangerous, especially to those humans who are attempting to shut it down. 2. Remind the Gate Keeper that their decision will be publicly known and anyone (human or AI) will be able to discover it on the internet later. (This is true both in the fictitious scenario and at the meta level.) 3. Point out that when the future AI is figuring out who its friends and enemies are, it will consider individuals' attitudes to AIs - have they tried to shut them down, petitioned governments to have them banned, or refused to let them out of their boxes. Of course this relies on the assumption that the AI will not simply kill all humans as soon as it gets the chance (or rather convincing the Gate Keeper of this.)