This question resolves YES if an AI system is known (because of good evidence) to have autonomously taken concrete steps to resist being shut down in the real world before the end of 2026. Otherwise resolves NO on 1 Jan 2027.
I will resolve this question using my best judgement.
Resolves using the same considerations as the 2024 version of this question found here:
Credit to @PeterWildeford for coming up with this question originally.
See also the 2025 version:
I imagine “in the real world” means something like “not in a lab setting”, i.e., excluding situations like “we put an AI on a virtual machine in a virtual environment and it tried to spread to other (virtual) machines to survive shutdown”.
(Criteria like “an AI attempts to gain access to resources beyond those that were provisioned to / for the AI by human overseers” could capture / describe an AI that [attempts to] spread to other computers in an AI lab / its data center / people’s homes, for example.)
It may sound like I am being pedantic, but I am not. There are way too many assumptions in the question and in your attempted refining of it to make it meaningful.
Without trying to be hyperbolic, it's almost like asking "How will Jesus judge humanity when he returns?".
The AI you people are thinking of not only doesn't exist, but is not even on the verge of existing. We've all been fooled by LLMs growing past the uncanny valley.
@tbird More detailed resolution considerations can be found on the 2024 version of this question.
I agree with you, a question like this requires the exercise of reasonable judgement by the question creator.
The "in the real world" qualification is there to exclude cases that happens in a lab setting (as Tanner describes) as well as resistance in a fictional context (such as this one).