I can just give my good friend Epsilon, who always exactly does what he is told, a gun and tell him to shoot me if I lie, then tell Omega I’m going to one-box, and then Omega would make its prediction. I would one-box, get $1,000,000 and, more importantly, not shot.
When I first read this I took it literally, as using Epsilon directly as a lie detector. That had some interesting potential side effects (like death) for a CDT agent. On second reading I take it to mean “Stay around with the gun until after everything is resolved and if I forswear myself kill me”. As a CDT agent you need to be sure that Epsilon will stay with the gun until you have abandoned the second box. If Epsilon just scans your thoughts, detects whether you are lying and then leaves then CDT will go ahead and take both boxes anyway. (It’s mind-boggling to think of agents that couldn’t even manage cooperation with themselves with $1m on the line and a truth oracle right there to help them!)
Yeah, I meant that Epsilon would shoot if you two-box after having said you would one-box. In the end, “Epsilon with a gun” is just a metaphor for / specific instance of precommitting, as is “computer program that can choose its programming”.
When I first read this I took it literally, as using Epsilon directly as a lie detector. That had some interesting potential side effects (like death) for a CDT agent. On second reading I take it to mean “Stay around with the gun until after everything is resolved and if I forswear myself kill me”. As a CDT agent you need to be sure that Epsilon will stay with the gun until you have abandoned the second box. If Epsilon just scans your thoughts, detects whether you are lying and then leaves then CDT will go ahead and take both boxes anyway. (It’s mind-boggling to think of agents that couldn’t even manage cooperation with themselves with $1m on the line and a truth oracle right there to help them!)
Yeah, I meant that Epsilon would shoot if you two-box after having said you would one-box. In the end, “Epsilon with a gun” is just a metaphor for / specific instance of precommitting, as is “computer program that can choose its programming”.