Roko's basilisk

Roko's basilisk is a fanciful thought experiment about the imagined risks involved in developing artificial intelligence (AI). The idea is that an all-powerful artificial intelligence from the future might retroactively punish those who did not help bring about its existence, including those who merely knew about the possible development of such a being. It is named after English mathematician Roko Mijic, the member of the rationalist community LessWrong who first publicly described it, though he did not originate the underlying ideas. The "basilisk" is by analogy to the mind-breaking images in David Langford's short story BLIT.