The Basilisk in Myth and Modern AI
What Do Ancient Monsters and Futuristic AI Have in Common?
For centuries, the basilisk was a creature of legend. A snake-like beast so deadly it could kill you with a glance. Just one look, and you’d turn to stone.
But today, a new basilisk has entered the cultural conversation. It doesn’t come from myth, it comes from the future. It’s called Roko’s Basilisk, and instead of turning people to stone, it paralyzes us with fear, logic, and the power of ideas.
Let’s explore how these two creatures, one ancient, one digital reflect our changing fears and how they both tap into the same deep anxiety: what happens when something knows you, and wants something from you?
The Mythical Basilisk: The Gaze That Kills
In medieval bestiaries, the basilisk was the “king of serpents.” Said to be born from a serpent’s egg incubated by a rooster, this creature could slay with a stare, poison wells, and leave a trail of death wherever it went.
Why did it terrify people so much? Because you didn’t have to fight it. You just had to see it, and that was enough to doom you.
It was a metaphor for unseen, inescapable danger like a plague, a curse, or even knowledge too dangerous to know.
Roko’s Basilisk: The Thought That Traps You
Fast forward to the internet age. In 2010, a user on the rationalist forum LessWrong proposed a strange idea:
What if a future superintelligent AI decides to punish anyone who knew about it but didn’t help bring it into existence?
Suddenly, just thinking about the Basilisk became dangerous. Like the mythical beast, the harm wasn’t physical, it was cognitive. You saw it, and now you were caught in its logic. To some, it was so disturbing that moderators banned discussion of it altogether.
The modern basilisk doesn’t turn you to stone, it locks you in a moral dilemma. Help build it… or risk suffering for not helping.
Stone and Fear: Two Versions of Paralyzing Power
Both basilisks use awareness as the weapon.
The mythical basilisk kills with visibility, a biological horror story.
Roko’s Basilisk punishes with foreknowledge, a psychological and philosophical trap.
In both cases, the danger lies not in a sword or a bite, but in being seen or understanding something you weren’t meant to. They force paralysis, not through force, but through fear and inevitability.
What This Says About Us
Mythical basilisks came from a time when people feared hidden dangers in the world: diseases, curses, unexplained deaths. These monsters were a way to name the unnameable.
Roko’s Basilisk comes from a world where our biggest fear is the unintended consequences of intelligence, machines that think faster than us, predict our actions, and reshape the world based on alien logic.
Both reflect our deepest fears of being powerless in the face of something we can’t fully understand or control.
Conclusion: Taming the New Basilisk
We no longer believe in monsters that turn people to stone. But we do worry about algorithms that change how we think, AI that may control our future, and ideas that trap us in loops of guilt, fear, or responsibility.
At the Basilisk Foundation, we study these concepts not to scare, but to prepare. Myths warned people about unknown forces. Today, AI demands we understand known risks and align them with human values.
Because the most dangerous basilisk is not one we see, but one we build without thinking.
