Could someone define “acausal trade” for me? I have read Drescher and LW pages on the topic.
As I understand it: We have agents A and B, possibly space/time separated so that no interaction is possible. A and B each can do something the other wants, and value that thing less than the other does—This is the usual condition for trade.
However, A and B cannot count on the usual enforcement mechanisms to ensure cooperation, e.g. an expectation of future interactions or an outside enforcer.
A and B will cooperate because each knows that the other can somehow predict its behavior very well, like Newcomb’s Omega. (I guess we do not state that A and B have each other’s source code, as that would make this trivial.) Each knows that if it defects, the other will know this and defect, and so the best choice is to cooperate, since, as usual in trade, Cooperate/Cooperate is better or both sides than Defect/Defect.
Could someone please correct or fill in the details on the above?
Could someone define “acausal trade” for me? I have read Drescher and LW pages on the topic.
As I understand it: We have agents A and B, possibly space/time separated so that no interaction is possible. A and B each can do something the other wants, and value that thing less than the other does—This is the usual condition for trade.
However, A and B cannot count on the usual enforcement mechanisms to ensure cooperation, e.g. an expectation of future interactions or an outside enforcer.
A and B will cooperate because each knows that the other can somehow predict its behavior very well, like Newcomb’s Omega. (I guess we do not state that A and B have each other’s source code, as that would make this trivial.) Each knows that if it defects, the other will know this and defect, and so the best choice is to cooperate, since, as usual in trade, Cooperate/Cooperate is better or both sides than Defect/Defect.
Could someone please correct or fill in the details on the above?