Emile comments on Outlawing Anthropics: An Updateless Dilemma - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 September 2009 06:31PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (194)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Emile 09 September 2009 08:23:15AM 0 points [-]

Let the dilemma be, "I will ask all people who wake up in green rooms if they are willing to take the bet 'Create 1 paperclip if the logical coinflip came up heads, destroy 3 paperclips if the logical coinflip came up tails'. (Should they disagree on their answers, I will destroy 5 paperclips.)" Then a paperclip maximizer, before the experiment, wants the paperclip maximizers who wake up in green rooms to refuse the bet. But a conscious paperclip maximizer who updates on anthropic evidence, who wakes up in a green room, will want to take the bet, with expected utility ((90% * +1 paperclip) + (10% * -3 paperclips)) = +0.6 paperclips.

That last calculation doesn't look right to me : the paperclip maximizer in the green room still knows that there are other paperclip maximizers in red rooms who will refuse the bet whether or not they rely on anthropic evidence. So the expected utility of taking the bet would be 100% * - 5 paperclips.

Or did I misunderstand something?

Comment author: wedrifid 09 September 2009 05:00:10PM *  3 points [-]

Or did I misunderstand something?

Red Clippy doesn't get a vote.