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

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

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

Comments (36)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: alyssavance 24 October 2009 08:30:43PM *  2 points [-]

If you define your utility function such that each lottery has identical utility, then sure. However, your utility function also includes preferences based on fairness. If you think that a one-billionth chance of doing lottery A a billion times is better than doing lottery A once on grounds of fairness, then your utility function must assign a different utility to lottery #658,168,192 than lottery #1. You cannot simultaneously say that the two are equivalent in terms of utility and that one is preferable to the other on grounds of X; that is like trying to make A = 3 and A = 4 at the same time.