By hypothesis, Omega on examining your code at 6:59, knows that you will self-modify at 7:00 and one-box thereafter.

Consider that every TDT agent must be derived from a non-TDT agent. There is no difference in principle between "I used to adhere to CDT but self-modified to TDT" and "I didn't understand TDT when I was a child, but I follow it now as an adult".

Correction made, thanks to Tim Tyler.

I don't see any reason for thinking this fellow's work represents "crippleware".

It seems to me that he agrees with you regarding actions, but differs about terminology.

Here's the CDT explanation of the terminology:

A way of reconciling the two sides of the debate about Newcomb's problem acknowledges that a rational person should prepare for the problem by cultivating a disposition to one-box. Then whenever the problem arises, the disposition will prompt a prediction of one-boxing and afterwards the act of one-boxing (still freely chosen). Causal decision theory may acknowledge the value of this preparation. It may conclude that cultivating a disposition to one-box is rational although one-boxing itself is irrational. Hence, if in Newcomb's problem an agent two-boxes, causal decision theory may concede that the agent did not rationally prepare for the problem. It nonetheless maintains that two-boxing itself is rational. Although two-boxing is not the act of a maximally rational agent, it is rational given the circumstances of Newcomb's problem.

The basic idea of forming a disposition to one-box has been around for a while. Here's another one:

Prior to entering Newcomb's Problem, it is rational to form the disposition to one-box.

• Realistic decision theory: rules for nonideal agents ... by Paul Weirich - 2004

...and another one:

"DISPOSITION-BASED DECISION THEORY"

This stronger view employs a disposition-based conception of rationality; it holds that what should be directly assessed for ‘rationality’ is dispositions to choose rather than choices themselves. Intuitively, there is a lot to be said for the disposition to choose one-box in Newcomb’s problem – people who go into Newcomb’s problem with this disposition reliably come out much richer than people who instead go in with the disposition to choose two-boxes. Similarly, the disposition to cooperate in a psychologically-similar prisoners’ dilemma reliably fares much better in this scenario than does the disposition to defect. A disposition-based conception of rationality holds that these intuitive observations about dispositions capture an important insight into the nature of practical rationality.

In Eliezer's article on Newcomb's problem, he says, "Omega has been correct on each of 100 observed occasions so far - everyone who took both boxes has found box B empty and received only a thousand dollars; everyone who took only box B has found B containing a million dollars. " Such evidence from previous players fails to appear in some problem descriptions, including Wikipedia's.

For me this is a "no-brainer". Take box B, deposit it, and come back for more. That's what the physical evidence says. Any philosopher who says "Taking BOTH boxes is the rational action," occurs to me as an absolute fool in the face of the evidence. (But I've never understood non-mathematical philosophy anyway, so I may a poor judge.)

Clarifying (NOT rhetorical) questions:

Have I just cheated, so that "it's not the Newcomb Problem anymore?"

When you fellows say a certain decision theory "two-boxes", are those theory-calculations including the previous play evidence or not?

Thanks for your time and attention.

This is the crippleware version of TDT that pure CDT agents self-modify to. It's crippleware because if you self-modify at 7:00pm you'll two-box against an Omega who saw your code at 6:59am.

Penalising a rational agent for its character flaws while it is under construction seems like a rather weak objection. Most systems have a construction phase during which they may behave imperfectly - so similar objections seem likely to apply to practically any system. However, this is surely no big deal: once a synthetic rational agent exists, we can copy its brain. After that, developmental mistakes would no longer be much of a factor.

It does seem as though this makes CDT essentially correct - in a sense. The main issue would then become one of terminology - of what the word "rational" means. There would be no significant difference over how agents should behave, though.

My reading of this issue is that the case goes against CDT. Its terminology is misleading. I don't think there's much of a case that it is wrong, though.

(Sigh.)

Yes, causal decision theorists have been saying harsh words against the winners on Newcomb's Problem since the dawn of causal decision theory. I am replying to them.

Newcomb's Problem capriciously rewards irrational people in the same way that reality capriciously rewards people who irrationally believe their choices matter.

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.

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.