gwern comments on Extreme risks: when not to use expected utility - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 23 October 2009 02:40PM

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Comment author: gwern 23 October 2009 05:32:57PM 1 point [-]

Oh, sure. (Eliezer has a post on specific human inconsistencies from the OB days.) But this is a theoretical result, saying we can go from specific choices - 'revealed preferences' - to a utility function/set of cardinal preferences which will satisfy those choices, if those choices are somewhat rational. Which is exactly what billswift asked for.

(And I'd note the issue here is not what do humans actually use when assessing small probabilities, but what they should do. If we scrap expected utility, it's not clear what the right thing is; which is what my other comment is about.)