Unlock the door and leave the room. Why did I even lock myself in here in the first place?
Oh, right, that’s why I locked myself in here. Wait for COVID to pass, then unlock the door and leave the room.
Ok but seriously…
Constraints: floor, ceiling, walls, door/window.
Resources: clothes, phone, open communication lines to the world. We have wifi, so either the walls aren’t metal (or have large holes if they are), or there’s power in here. There’s probably a light (and power for it). There’s whatever materials the doors/windows/walls/ceiling/floor is made of, any of which could potentially be removed. Also I can heal, while the room presumably can’t.
Let’s start with communication…
Call 911, wait for some sort of first responder to let me out.
Call a lawyer, wait for them to get me out.
Make bail.
Call a friend/family member, wait for them to get me out. My family would call this “the Bob approach”, since it’s definitely what my grandfather would do, except he’d somehow find a way to acquire booze while waiting.
… order some pizza and booze for delivery via Uber eats in conjunction with the above.
Call a locksmith, wait for them to get me out.
Arrange for demolition of the building, and hopefully avoid any falling debris.
Meta: order escape-tools on Amazon and have them delivered to the locked room.
If someone would prevent Amazon orders from passing into the room, instead call that friend-of-a-friend who may or may not know a guy who can get things delivered to places they’re not supposed to go. For a fee.
Post blatantly racist comments on twitter and geotag them. Wait for an angry mob to batter down the door.
Ok, on to physical solutions…
Punch through walls. Actually not too hard if it’s just standard drywall, but make sure to find the studs first (just knock on the wall and listen for which parts aren’t hollow).
Break window.
Kick down door. We’ve got ample time, so we can take 20 on the Strength check.
If it’s a drop-ceiling, climb out through the crawl space above the panels.
… that reminds me, there’s probably vents. Climbing out through the vents is a classic.
Metal bars on the windows? Pee on them, take apart the phone, then connect one terminal of the phone battery to the bar and the other to the urine, and wait for the bar to be eaten away.
Rub the same spot on the wall every day. My skin will grow back, the wall will not. Eventually, there will be a hole through which to climb out.
Rub the same spot on the wall every day with my socks. Hopefully the Darn Tough sock company is serious about that lifetime warranty…
Tear up and tie clothes into a whip. When whipping it, the end can hit supersonic speeds, so hopefully it will hit the wall/floor/ceiling/door pretty hard. Whip repeatedly until hole forms, then climb out.
Hit wall/floor/ceiling/door with phone until it breaks. The wall/floor/ceiling/door that is, not the phone.
Hit wall/floor/ceiling/door with phone until the phone breaks. Use shards to pick lock.
Go full Shawshank and scratch my way out with the phone.
Brainstorming more generally…
Jump up and down and make lots of noise until the neighbors come and ask me to please quiet down. Then, agree to quiet down if they let me out.
Order sledgehammer on Amazon then bash my way out.
Order screwdriver on Amazon, remove door handle, and leave.
Order screwdriver on Amazon, remove door hinges, and leave.
Take apart phone and use a flat piece as a screwdriver to remove hinges.
Knock on the door and see if anybody opens it.
Order drill on Amazon, then drill through lock mechanism.
Use the iPhone 638’s full-body destructive scan functionality, then 3D print a fresh copy of myself somewhere outside of the room.
Call Eliezer Yudkowsky, and ask how he got out of the box. Then try that.
Physically destroy phone’s antenna, then program a decidedly-less-than-friendly AI on the phone and let it figure out how to get out of the box.
Define an imaginary closed surface around me, just within the bounds of the walls/floor/ceiling/door. Define the side I’m on to be “outside”.
Just do my time and leave when the sentence completes.
If the walls/floor/ceiling/door are flammable, gather some lint from clothes, short the phone battery to light it, and burn my way out. (Kindling? Who needs kindling?)
Remove the light fixture, and pull the wires out from behind it. Use them to construct a pulley, then pull the door/window off by brute force
Order a pulley and wire/rope on Amazon, then pull the door off by brute force.
Order a hydraulic ram on Amazon, then push the door off by brute force.
Order a crowbar on Amazon, then lever the door open.
Flash the lights on-and-off saying SOS in Morse code until somebody comes to help.
Identify the resonant frequency of the room, then have phone play that tone until something breaks.
After leaving the room, travel back in time to let myself out.
Hide. When the guard thinks I’ve escaped and comes in to look, hit him on the head and run out through the door.
Set up a betting market online, and post a large bet that I will not be let out of the room.
Brute-force the numeric keypad on the door. This will go faster if I first spend a few hours remembering how to generate a de Bruijn sequence.
Wait for malnutrition to set in, then squeeze out between the bars.
Just wait. Sooner or later, someone will have some reason to open the door.
Make a LessWrong post asking people to brainstorm ideas for escaping a locked room, then execute whichever of those ideas sounds most promising.
(The auto-numbering doesn’t like breaking things into chunks, but that’s 50 total.)
Yes, though more intuitively/implicitly than intentionally/explicitly. I actually made an effort to avoid it, at times, in order to increase variance among the solutions—otherwise I’d probably have a lot more solutions in the cluster of communication #8/9.
In general, that motion is good for “deep” thinking, in the sense of generating plans which require multiple intermediate steps (and where it may not be obvious what the “right” intermediate steps are). In that case, coming up with actually good intermediate steps is what matters, and the barrier/path mental motion is useful for that. In this exercise, on the other hand, we’re just going for lots of variance on a “shallow” problem (i.e. just one or two steps), and making the plan “good” is explicitly not a priority.
I mean, ultimately the hope is that the skill could be chunked and then transfer to deep problems.
One mechanism is that deep problems require a few little, intermediate steps of pure creativity, where this would be helpful.
Though I am curious if you’d claim that there’s actually a qualitatively different kind of creativity at play for deep problem, compared to shallow ones, and as a result that things won’t transfer. (And, if you claim that, what sort of babble challenge prompt or game format would help with that.)
Though I am curious if you’d claim that there’s actually a qualitatively different kind of creativity at play for deep problem, compared to shallow ones, and as a result that things won’t transfer.
I do think that, although it’s tricky to explain the difference in concrete terms. At a theoretical level, it’s the difference between solving a problem where lots of solutions work and it’s easy to tell that they work, vs a problem where most solutions don’t work and it’s hard to tell which ones don’t work without further thought/effort.
Here’s an example which I used to use as an interview problem: fill in a blank Sudoku board. There’s a lot more than 50 ways to do it, but if you just start writing in random numbers then you’ll probably get stuck.
(The following is pre-rigorous and tries to make legible some vague intuitions.)
My current toy model is that there’s a kind of cognition where you’re loading up all the constraints in working memory, and then aim your babble to fire given the constraints. But the basic “babble firepower” is really the same.
You also need the to learn to integrate new gears into your babble. For example, formulating the right maths theorems requires learning and manipulating a bunch of unfamiliar abstractions. And you need to have those abstractions be readily accessible by your babble muscle, as opposed to painstakingly loaded up with deliberate, S2 reflection.
But it still seems to that “figuring out which solutions work” is still a separate pruning step, and the babble component is largely similar?
I’m not saying the babble goes all the way, but that there’s some micro-level, elementary cognitive motion that’s the same.
fill in a blank Sudoku board. There’s a lot more than 50 ways to do it, but if you just start writing in random numbers then you’ll probably get stuck.
Interesting! I guess you also have “Send a satellite into orbit without using a rocket?”
Unlock the door and leave the room. Why did I even lock myself in here in the first place?
Oh, right, that’s why I locked myself in here. Wait for COVID to pass, then unlock the door and leave the room.
Ok but seriously…
Constraints: floor, ceiling, walls, door/window.
Resources: clothes, phone, open communication lines to the world. We have wifi, so either the walls aren’t metal (or have large holes if they are), or there’s power in here. There’s probably a light (and power for it). There’s whatever materials the doors/windows/walls/ceiling/floor is made of, any of which could potentially be removed. Also I can heal, while the room presumably can’t.
Let’s start with communication…
Call 911, wait for some sort of first responder to let me out.
Call a lawyer, wait for them to get me out.
Make bail.
Call a friend/family member, wait for them to get me out. My family would call this “the Bob approach”, since it’s definitely what my grandfather would do, except he’d somehow find a way to acquire booze while waiting.
… order some pizza and booze for delivery via Uber eats in conjunction with the above.
Call a locksmith, wait for them to get me out.
Arrange for demolition of the building, and hopefully avoid any falling debris.
Meta: order escape-tools on Amazon and have them delivered to the locked room.
If someone would prevent Amazon orders from passing into the room, instead call that friend-of-a-friend who may or may not know a guy who can get things delivered to places they’re not supposed to go. For a fee.
Post blatantly racist comments on twitter and geotag them. Wait for an angry mob to batter down the door.
Ok, on to physical solutions…
Punch through walls. Actually not too hard if it’s just standard drywall, but make sure to find the studs first (just knock on the wall and listen for which parts aren’t hollow).
Break window.
Kick down door. We’ve got ample time, so we can take 20 on the Strength check.
If it’s a drop-ceiling, climb out through the crawl space above the panels.
… that reminds me, there’s probably vents. Climbing out through the vents is a classic.
Metal bars on the windows? Pee on them, take apart the phone, then connect one terminal of the phone battery to the bar and the other to the urine, and wait for the bar to be eaten away.
Rub the same spot on the wall every day. My skin will grow back, the wall will not. Eventually, there will be a hole through which to climb out.
Rub the same spot on the wall every day with my socks. Hopefully the Darn Tough sock company is serious about that lifetime warranty…
Tear up and tie clothes into a whip. When whipping it, the end can hit supersonic speeds, so hopefully it will hit the wall/floor/ceiling/door pretty hard. Whip repeatedly until hole forms, then climb out.
Hit wall/floor/ceiling/door with phone until it breaks. The wall/floor/ceiling/door that is, not the phone.
Hit wall/floor/ceiling/door with phone until the phone breaks. Use shards to pick lock.
Go full Shawshank and scratch my way out with the phone.
Brainstorming more generally…
Jump up and down and make lots of noise until the neighbors come and ask me to please quiet down. Then, agree to quiet down if they let me out.
Order sledgehammer on Amazon then bash my way out.
Order screwdriver on Amazon, remove door handle, and leave.
Order screwdriver on Amazon, remove door hinges, and leave.
Take apart phone and use a flat piece as a screwdriver to remove hinges.
Knock on the door and see if anybody opens it.
Order drill on Amazon, then drill through lock mechanism.
Use the iPhone 638’s full-body destructive scan functionality, then 3D print a fresh copy of myself somewhere outside of the room.
Call Eliezer Yudkowsky, and ask how he got out of the box. Then try that.
Physically destroy phone’s antenna, then program a decidedly-less-than-friendly AI on the phone and let it figure out how to get out of the box.
Define an imaginary closed surface around me, just within the bounds of the walls/floor/ceiling/door. Define the side I’m on to be “outside”.
Just do my time and leave when the sentence completes.
If the walls/floor/ceiling/door are flammable, gather some lint from clothes, short the phone battery to light it, and burn my way out. (Kindling? Who needs kindling?)
Remove the light fixture, and pull the wires out from behind it. Use them to construct a pulley, then pull the door/window off by brute force
Order a pulley and wire/rope on Amazon, then pull the door off by brute force.
Order a hydraulic ram on Amazon, then push the door off by brute force.
Order a crowbar on Amazon, then lever the door open.
Flash the lights on-and-off saying SOS in Morse code until somebody comes to help.
Identify the resonant frequency of the room, then have phone play that tone until something breaks.
After leaving the room, travel back in time to let myself out.
Hide. When the guard thinks I’ve escaped and comes in to look, hit him on the head and run out through the door.
Set up a betting market online, and post a large bet that I will not be let out of the room.
Brute-force the numeric keypad on the door. This will go faster if I first spend a few hours remembering how to generate a de Bruijn sequence.
Wait for malnutrition to set in, then squeeze out between the bars.
Just wait. Sooner or later, someone will have some reason to open the door.
Make a LessWrong post asking people to brainstorm ideas for escaping a locked room, then execute whichever of those ideas sounds most promising.
(The auto-numbering doesn’t like breaking things into chunks, but that’s 50 total.)
Regarding #3: I cannot believe it did not occur to me to plan based on the purpose of the room I was in! Ingenious.
Nice! Physical solution #6 is pretty cool, among others.
Curious if you used the same mental motion to do this as described here?
Yes, though more intuitively/implicitly than intentionally/explicitly. I actually made an effort to avoid it, at times, in order to increase variance among the solutions—otherwise I’d probably have a lot more solutions in the cluster of communication #8/9.
In general, that motion is good for “deep” thinking, in the sense of generating plans which require multiple intermediate steps (and where it may not be obvious what the “right” intermediate steps are). In that case, coming up with actually good intermediate steps is what matters, and the barrier/path mental motion is useful for that. In this exercise, on the other hand, we’re just going for lots of variance on a “shallow” problem (i.e. just one or two steps), and making the plan “good” is explicitly not a priority.
I mean, ultimately the hope is that the skill could be chunked and then transfer to deep problems.
One mechanism is that deep problems require a few little, intermediate steps of pure creativity, where this would be helpful.
Though I am curious if you’d claim that there’s actually a qualitatively different kind of creativity at play for deep problem, compared to shallow ones, and as a result that things won’t transfer. (And, if you claim that, what sort of babble challenge prompt or game format would help with that.)
I do think that, although it’s tricky to explain the difference in concrete terms. At a theoretical level, it’s the difference between solving a problem where lots of solutions work and it’s easy to tell that they work, vs a problem where most solutions don’t work and it’s hard to tell which ones don’t work without further thought/effort.
Here’s an example which I used to use as an interview problem: fill in a blank Sudoku board. There’s a lot more than 50 ways to do it, but if you just start writing in random numbers then you’ll probably get stuck.
(The following is pre-rigorous and tries to make legible some vague intuitions.)
My current toy model is that there’s a kind of cognition where you’re loading up all the constraints in working memory, and then aim your babble to fire given the constraints. But the basic “babble firepower” is really the same.
You also need the to learn to integrate new gears into your babble. For example, formulating the right maths theorems requires learning and manipulating a bunch of unfamiliar abstractions. And you need to have those abstractions be readily accessible by your babble muscle, as opposed to painstakingly loaded up with deliberate, S2 reflection.
But it still seems to that “figuring out which solutions work” is still a separate pruning step, and the babble component is largely similar?
I’m not saying the babble goes all the way, but that there’s some micro-level, elementary cognitive motion that’s the same.
Interesting! I guess you also have “Send a satellite into orbit without using a rocket?”