(Looks over Tim Tyler’s general trend in comments.)
Okay. It’s helpful that you’re doing a literature search. It’s not helpful that every time you find something remotely related, you feel a need to claim that it is already TDT and that TDT is nothing innovative by comparison. It does not appear to me that you understand either the general background of these questions as they have been pursued within decision theory, or TDT in particular. Literature search is great, but if you’re just spending 15 minutes Googling, then you have insufficient knowledge to compare the theories. Plenty of people have called for a decision theory that one-boxes on Newcomb and smokes on the smoking lesion—the question is coughing up something that seems reasonably formal. Plenty of people have advocated precommitment, but it comes with its own set of problems, and that is why a non-precommitment-based decision theory is important.
Well, other people have previously taken a crack at the same problem.
If they have resolved it, then I should think that would be helpful—since then you can look at their solution. If not, their efforts to solve the problem might still be enlightening.
So: I think my contribution in this area is probably helpful.
15 minutes was how long it took me to find the cited material in the first place. Not trivial—but not that hard.
No need to beat me up for not knowing the background of your own largely unpublished theory!
...but yes, in my view, advanced decision theory is a bit of a red herring for those interested in machine intelligence. It’s like: that is so not the problem. It seems like wondering whether to use butter-icing or marzipan on the top of the cake—when you don’t yet have the recipe or the ingredients.
So far, “Disposition-Based Decision Theory” (and its apparently-flawed precursor) is the only thing I have seen that apparently claims to address and solve the same problem that is under discussion in this forum:
I suppose there’s also a raft of CDT enthusiasts, who explain why two-boxing is actually not a flaw in their system, and that they have no objections to the idea of agents who one-box. In their case, the debate appears to be over terminology: what does the word “rational” actually mean—is it about choosing the best action from the available options? Or does it mean something else?
Are there other attempts at a solution? Your turn for some references, I feel.
Marion Ledwig’s thesis appears to be an overview of Newcomb’s Problem from 2000. That’s from before the disposition-based decision theory I referenced was worked out—and there’s minimal coverage.
Are you suggesting that there are some proposed solutions to the problem of building a decision theory that “does the right thing” somewhere in there, that pre-date disposition-based decision theory?
The main thesis there (in the section “Newcomb’s Problem as a Game against Nature”) seems to go against what many people think here—and is more along the lines of CDT.
Anyway, since it’s a 300 page thesis, perhaps you would like to be more specific.
Or maybe you are just waving in the general direction of the existing literature. In which case, I fail to see how that addresses my point.
“Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation” dates from 1985. That seems rather unlikely to have relevant coverage either. Again, it came too early—before the first attempts at a solution that I’m aware of.
People have been trying to solve the problem since the day it was presented, and it’s pretty clear that you don’t understand which parts of this particular solution are supposed to be novel. The main novel idea is the incorporation of logical uncertainty into Pearl-style causal graphs and the formulation of the counterfactuals as surgery over those causal graphs.
The idea that rationalists should make lots of money, versus the idea that rationalists should appear very reasonable, has been a central point of controversy from the beginning.
Talking about dispositions and precommitments has been going on since the beginning.
If you’re going to start waving judgments of novelty around, then read the literature.
One problem here is that the “particular solution” tha I am apparently expected to be understanding the novelty of hasn’t actually been published. Instead what we have is some notes.
The problem I was considering involves finding a method which obtains the “right” answer to problems like Newcomb’s problem and The Smoking Problem with a decision theory. If you are trying to solve some other problem, that’s fine.
If “precommitment” just means cutting off some of your options in advance, precommitment seems to be desirable—under various circumstances where you want to signal commitment—and believe that faked commitment signals would be detected. You use the term as though it is in some way negative.
It seems to me that I have not encountered the critics of precommitment saying what they mean by the term. Consequently, it is hard to see what problems they see with the idea.
(Looks over Tim Tyler’s general trend in comments.)
Okay. It’s helpful that you’re doing a literature search. It’s not helpful that every time you find something remotely related, you feel a need to claim that it is already TDT and that TDT is nothing innovative by comparison. It does not appear to me that you understand either the general background of these questions as they have been pursued within decision theory, or TDT in particular. Literature search is great, but if you’re just spending 15 minutes Googling, then you have insufficient knowledge to compare the theories. Plenty of people have called for a decision theory that one-boxes on Newcomb and smokes on the smoking lesion—the question is coughing up something that seems reasonably formal. Plenty of people have advocated precommitment, but it comes with its own set of problems, and that is why a non-precommitment-based decision theory is important.
In the spirit of dredging up references with no actual deep insight, I note this recent post on Andrew Gelman’s blog.
Well, other people have previously taken a crack at the same problem.
If they have resolved it, then I should think that would be helpful—since then you can look at their solution. If not, their efforts to solve the problem might still be enlightening.
So: I think my contribution in this area is probably helpful.
15 minutes was how long it took me to find the cited material in the first place. Not trivial—but not that hard.
No need to beat me up for not knowing the background of your own largely unpublished theory!
...but yes, in my view, advanced decision theory is a bit of a red herring for those interested in machine intelligence. It’s like: that is so not the problem. It seems like wondering whether to use butter-icing or marzipan on the top of the cake—when you don’t yet have the recipe or the ingredients.
The cited material isn’t much different from a lot of other material in the same field.
So far, “Disposition-Based Decision Theory” (and its apparently-flawed precursor) is the only thing I have seen that apparently claims to address and solve the same problem that is under discussion in this forum:
I suppose there’s also a raft of CDT enthusiasts, who explain why two-boxing is actually not a flaw in their system, and that they have no objections to the idea of agents who one-box. In their case, the debate appears to be over terminology: what does the word “rational” actually mean—is it about choosing the best action from the available options? Or does it mean something else?
Are there other attempts at a solution? Your turn for some references, I feel.
“Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation” (the edited volume) will give you a feel for the basics, as will reading Marion Ledwig’s thesis paper.
Marion Ledwig’s thesis appears to be an overview of Newcomb’s Problem from 2000. That’s from before the disposition-based decision theory I referenced was worked out—and there’s minimal coverage.
Are you suggesting that there are some proposed solutions to the problem of building a decision theory that “does the right thing” somewhere in there, that pre-date disposition-based decision theory?
The main thesis there (in the section “Newcomb’s Problem as a Game against Nature”) seems to go against what many people think here—and is more along the lines of CDT.
Anyway, since it’s a 300 page thesis, perhaps you would like to be more specific.
Or maybe you are just waving in the general direction of the existing literature. In which case, I fail to see how that addresses my point.
“Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation” dates from 1985. That seems rather unlikely to have relevant coverage either. Again, it came too early—before the first attempts at a solution that I’m aware of.
People have been trying to solve the problem since the day it was presented, and it’s pretty clear that you don’t understand which parts of this particular solution are supposed to be novel. The main novel idea is the incorporation of logical uncertainty into Pearl-style causal graphs and the formulation of the counterfactuals as surgery over those causal graphs.
The idea that rationalists should make lots of money, versus the idea that rationalists should appear very reasonable, has been a central point of controversy from the beginning.
Talking about dispositions and precommitments has been going on since the beginning.
If you’re going to start waving judgments of novelty around, then read the literature.
One problem here is that the “particular solution” tha I am apparently expected to be understanding the novelty of hasn’t actually been published. Instead what we have is some notes.
The problem I was considering involves finding a method which obtains the “right” answer to problems like Newcomb’s problem and The Smoking Problem with a decision theory. If you are trying to solve some other problem, that’s fine.
If “precommitment” just means cutting off some of your options in advance, precommitment seems to be desirable—under various circumstances where you want to signal commitment—and believe that faked commitment signals would be detected. You use the term as though it is in some way negative.
It seems to me that I have not encountered the critics of precommitment saying what they mean by the term. Consequently, it is hard to see what problems they see with the idea.