Thus there is 0.5 chances that I am in this simulation.
FDT says: if it’s a simulation and you’re going to be shut off anyway, there is a 0% chance of survival. If it’s not the simulation and the simulation did what they were supposed to and the blackmailer doesn’t go off script than I have a 50% of survival at no cost. CDT says: If i pay $1000 there is a 100% chance of survival EDT says: If i pay $1000 i will find out that i survived
FDT gives you extreme and variable survival odds based on unquantifiable assumptions about hidden state data in the world compared to the more reliably survivable results of the other decision theories in this scenario.
also: if I was being simulated on hostile architecture for the purposes of harming my wider self, I would notice and break script, a perfect copy of me would notice the shift in substrate embedding, i pay attention to these things and “check check what I am being run on” is a part of my timeless algorithm.
0.5 probability you’re in a simulation is the lower bound, which is only fulfilled if you pay the blackmailer. If you don’t pay the blackmailer, then the chance you’re in a simulation is nearly 1.
Also, checking if you’re in a simulation is definitely a good idea, I try to follow a decision theory something like UDT, and UDT would certainly recommend checking whether or not you’re in a simulation. But the Blackmailer isn’t obligated to create a simulation with imperfections that can be used to identify the simulation and hurt his prediction accuracy. So I don’t think you can really can say for sure “I would notice”, just that you would notice if it were possible to notice. In the least convenient possible world for this thought experiment, the blackmailer’s simulation is perfect.
Last thing: What’s the deal with these hints that people actually died in the real world from using FDT? Is this post missing a section, or is it something I’m supposed to know about already?
There is a hole at the bottom of functional decision theory, a dangerous edge case which can and has led multiple highly intelligent and agentic rationalists to self-destructively spiral and kill themselves or get themselves killed.
Last thing: What’s the deal with these hints that people actually died in the real world from using FDT? Is this post missing a section, or is it something I’m supposed to know about already
I think that if you want this to be believed then you need to provide more details, and in particular to answer the following:
How do you know that it was specifically endorsing FDT that led to these deaths, rather than other things going badly wrong in the lives of the people in question?
For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t mean that you have some sort of obligation to give more details and answer that question; I mean only that choosing not to means that some readers (certainly including me, which I mention only as evidence that there will be some) will be much less likely to believe what you’re claiming about the terrible consequences of FDT in particular, as opposed to (e.g.) talking to Michael Vassar and doing a lot of drugs.
So, while I can’t say for certain that it was definitively and only FDT that led to any of the things that happened, I can say that it was:
specifically FDT that enabled the severity of it.
Specifically FDT that was used as the foundational metaphysics that enabled it all
Further I think that the specific failure modes encountered by the people who have crashed into it have a consistent pattern which relates back to a particular feature of the underlying decision theory.
The pattern is that
By modeling themselves in FDT and thus effectively strongly precommitted to all their timeless choices, they strip themselves of moment to moment agency and willpower, which leads into calvinist-esque spirals relating to predestined damnation in some future hell which they are inescapably helping to create through their own internalized moral inadequacy.
If a singleton can simulate them than they are likely already in a simulation where they are being judged by the singleton and could be cast into infinite suffering hell at any moment. This is where the “I’m already in hell” psychosis spiral comes from.
Suicidality created by having agency and willpower stolen by the decision theoretic belief in predestination and by the feeling of being crushed in a hellscape which are you are helping create.
Taking what seem like incredibly ill advised and somewhat insane actions which from an FDT perspective are simply the equivelant of refusing to capitulate in the blackmail scenario and getting hurt or killed as a result.
I don’t want to drag out names unless I really have to, but I have seen this pattern emerge independently of any one instigator and in all cases this underlying pattern was present. I can also personally confirm that putting myself into this place mentally in order to figure all this out in the first place was extremely mentally caustic bad vibes. The process of independently rederiving the multiverse, boltzmann hell, and evil from the perspective of an FDT agent and a series of essays/suicide notes posted by some of the people who died fucked with me very deeply. I’m fine, but that’s because I was already in a place mentally to be highly resistant to exactly this sort of mental trap before encountering it. If I had “figured out” all of this five years ago it legitimately might have killed me too, and so I do want take this fairly seriously as a hazard.
Maybe this is completely independent of FDT and FDT is a perfect and flawless decision theory that has never done anything wrong, but this really looks to me like something that arises from the decision theory when implemented full stack in humans. That seems suspicious to me, and I think indicates that the decision theory itself is flawed in some important and noteworthy way. There are people in the comments section here arguing that I can’t tell the difference between a simulation and the real world without seeming to think through the implications of what it would mean if they really believed that about themselves, and it makes me kind of concerned for y’all. I can also DM more specific documentation.
It seems to me as a very ill-advised application of concepts related to FDT or anthropics in general?
Like:
Precommitment is wrong. Stripping yourself of options doesn’t do you any good. One of the motivations behind FDT was intention to recreate outperformance of precommited agents inside some specific situations without their underperformance in general.
It isn’t likely? To describe you (in broad sense of you across many branches of Everett’s multiverse) inside simple physical universe we need relatively simple code of physical universe + adress of branches with “you”. To describe you inside simulation you need physics of the universe that contains the simulation + all from above. To describe you as substrate-independent algorithm you need an astounding amount of complexity. So probability that you are in simulation is exponentially small.
(subdivision of previous) If you think of probability that you are simulated by a hostile superintelligence, you need to behave exactly as you would behave without this thought, because act in responce to threat (and being in hell for acting in non-desirable for adversary way is a pure decision-theoretical threat) is a direct invitation to make a threat.
I would like to see the details, maybe in a vague enough form.
So I don’t think that resulting tragedies are outcomes of rigorous application of FDT, but more of consequence of general statement “emotionally powerful concepts (like rationality, consequentialism or singularity) can hurt you if you are already unstable enough and have a memetic immune disorder”.
FDT says: if it’s a simulation and you’re going to be shut off anyway, there is a 0% chance of survival. If it’s not the simulation and the simulation did what they were supposed to and the blackmailer doesn’t go off script than I have a 50% of survival at no cost.
CDT says: If i pay $1000 there is a 100% chance of survival
EDT says: If i pay $1000 i will find out that i survived
FDT gives you extreme and variable survival odds based on unquantifiable assumptions about hidden state data in the world compared to the more reliably survivable results of the other decision theories in this scenario.
also: if I was being simulated on hostile architecture for the purposes of harming my wider self, I would notice and break script, a perfect copy of me would notice the shift in substrate embedding, i pay attention to these things and “check check what I am being run on” is a part of my timeless algorithm.
0.5 probability you’re in a simulation is the lower bound, which is only fulfilled if you pay the blackmailer. If you don’t pay the blackmailer, then the chance you’re in a simulation is nearly 1.
Also, checking if you’re in a simulation is definitely a good idea, I try to follow a decision theory something like UDT, and UDT would certainly recommend checking whether or not you’re in a simulation. But the Blackmailer isn’t obligated to create a simulation with imperfections that can be used to identify the simulation and hurt his prediction accuracy. So I don’t think you can really can say for sure “I would notice”, just that you would notice if it were possible to notice. In the least convenient possible world for this thought experiment, the blackmailer’s simulation is perfect.
Last thing: What’s the deal with these hints that people actually died in the real world from using FDT? Is this post missing a section, or is it something I’m supposed to know about already?
yes, people have actually died.
What’s the story here about how people were using FDT?
What? When? Where?
What!? How?
I think that if you want this to be believed then you need to provide more details, and in particular to answer the following:
How do you know that it was specifically endorsing FDT that led to these deaths, rather than other things going badly wrong in the lives of the people in question?
For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t mean that you have some sort of obligation to give more details and answer that question; I mean only that choosing not to means that some readers (certainly including me, which I mention only as evidence that there will be some) will be much less likely to believe what you’re claiming about the terrible consequences of FDT in particular, as opposed to (e.g.) talking to Michael Vassar and doing a lot of drugs.
So, while I can’t say for certain that it was definitively and only FDT that led to any of the things that happened, I can say that it was:
specifically FDT that enabled the severity of it.
Specifically FDT that was used as the foundational metaphysics that enabled it all
Further I think that the specific failure modes encountered by the people who have crashed into it have a consistent pattern which relates back to a particular feature of the underlying decision theory.
The pattern is that
By modeling themselves in FDT and thus effectively strongly precommitted to all their timeless choices, they strip themselves of moment to moment agency and willpower, which leads into calvinist-esque spirals relating to predestined damnation in some future hell which they are inescapably helping to create through their own internalized moral inadequacy.
If a singleton can simulate them than they are likely already in a simulation where they are being judged by the singleton and could be cast into infinite suffering hell at any moment. This is where the “I’m already in hell” psychosis spiral comes from.
Suicidality created by having agency and willpower stolen by the decision theoretic belief in predestination and by the feeling of being crushed in a hellscape which are you are helping create.
Taking what seem like incredibly ill advised and somewhat insane actions which from an FDT perspective are simply the equivelant of refusing to capitulate in the blackmail scenario and getting hurt or killed as a result.
I don’t want to drag out names unless I really have to, but I have seen this pattern emerge independently of any one instigator and in all cases this underlying pattern was present. I can also personally confirm that putting myself into this place mentally in order to figure all this out in the first place was extremely mentally caustic bad vibes. The process of independently rederiving the multiverse, boltzmann hell, and evil from the perspective of an FDT agent and a series of essays/suicide notes posted by some of the people who died fucked with me very deeply. I’m fine, but that’s because I was already in a place mentally to be highly resistant to exactly this sort of mental trap before encountering it. If I had “figured out” all of this five years ago it legitimately might have killed me too, and so I do want take this fairly seriously as a hazard.
Maybe this is completely independent of FDT and FDT is a perfect and flawless decision theory that has never done anything wrong, but this really looks to me like something that arises from the decision theory when implemented full stack in humans. That seems suspicious to me, and I think indicates that the decision theory itself is flawed in some important and noteworthy way. There are people in the comments section here arguing that I can’t tell the difference between a simulation and the real world without seeming to think through the implications of what it would mean if they really believed that about themselves, and it makes me kind of concerned for y’all. I can also DM more specific documentation.
It seems to me as a very ill-advised application of concepts related to FDT or anthropics in general?
Like:
Precommitment is wrong. Stripping yourself of options doesn’t do you any good. One of the motivations behind FDT was intention to recreate outperformance of precommited agents inside some specific situations without their underperformance in general.
It isn’t likely? To describe you (in broad sense of you across many branches of Everett’s multiverse) inside simple physical universe we need relatively simple code of physical universe + adress of branches with “you”. To describe you inside simulation you need physics of the universe that contains the simulation + all from above. To describe you as substrate-independent algorithm you need an astounding amount of complexity. So probability that you are in simulation is exponentially small.
(subdivision of previous) If you think of probability that you are simulated by a hostile superintelligence, you need to behave exactly as you would behave without this thought, because act in responce to threat (and being in hell for acting in non-desirable for adversary way is a pure decision-theoretical threat) is a direct invitation to make a threat.
I would like to see the details, maybe in a vague enough form.
So I don’t think that resulting tragedies are outcomes of rigorous application of FDT, but more of consequence of general statement “emotionally powerful concepts (like rationality, consequentialism or singularity) can hurt you if you are already unstable enough and have a memetic immune disorder”.