A bounded utility function, on which increasing years of happy life (or money, or whatever) give only finite utility in the infinite limit, does not favor taking vanishing probabilities of immense payoffs. It also preserves normal expected utility calculations so that you can think about 90th percentile and 10th percentile, and lets you prefer higher payoffs in probable cases.
Basically, this “median outcome” heuristic looks like just a lossy compression of a bounded utility function’s choice outputs, subject to new objections like APMason’s. Why not just go with the bounded utility function?
I want that it is possible to have a very bad outcome: If I can play a lottery that has 1 utilium cost, 10^7 payoff and a winning chance of 10^-6, and if I can play this lottery enough times, I want to play it.
A bounded utility function, on which increasing years of happy life (or money, or whatever) give only finite utility in the infinite limit, does not favor taking vanishing probabilities of immense payoffs. It also preserves normal expected utility calculations so that you can think about 90th percentile and 10th percentile, and lets you prefer higher payoffs in probable cases.
Basically, this “median outcome” heuristic looks like just a lossy compression of a bounded utility function’s choice outputs, subject to new objections like APMason’s. Why not just go with the bounded utility function?
I want that it is possible to have a very bad outcome: If I can play a lottery that has 1 utilium cost, 10^7 payoff and a winning chance of 10^-6, and if I can play this lottery enough times, I want to play it.
“Enough times” to make it >50% likely that you will win, yes? Why is this the correct cutoff point?