EDT agents handle Newcomb’s problem as follows: they observe that agents who encounter the problem and one-box do better on average than those who encounter the problem and two-box, so they one-box.
That’s the high-level description, but let’s break it down further. Unlike CDT, EDT doesn’t worry about the fact that their may be a correlation between your decision and hidden state. It assumes that if the visible state before you made your decision is the same, then the counterfactuals generated by considering your possible decisions are comparable. In other words, any differences in hidden state, such as you being a different agent or money being placed in the box, are attributed to your decision (see my previous discussion here)
EDT agents handle Newcomb’s problem as follows: they observe that agents who encounter the problem and one-box do better on average than those who encounter the problem and two-box, so they one-box.
That’s the high-level description, but let’s break it down further. Unlike CDT, EDT doesn’t worry about the fact that their may be a correlation between your decision and hidden state. It assumes that if the visible state before you made your decision is the same, then the counterfactuals generated by considering your possible decisions are comparable. In other words, any differences in hidden state, such as you being a different agent or money being placed in the box, are attributed to your decision (see my previous discussion here)