Stuart_Armstrong comments on Expected utility without the independence axiom - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (65)
You are absolutely correct, and it pains me because this issue should have been settled a long time ago.
When Eliezer Yudkowsky first brought up the breakdown of independence in humans, way, way back during the discussion of the Allais Paradox, the poster "Gray Area" explained why people aren't being money-pumped, even though they violate independence. He/she came to the same conclusion in the quote above.
Here's what Gray Area said back then:
I didn't see anyone even reply to Gray Area anywhere in that series, or anytime since.
So I bring up essentially the same point whenever Eliezer uses the Allais result, always concluding with a zinger like: If getting lottery tickets is being exploited, I don't want to be empowered.
Please, folks, stop equating a hypothetical money pump with the actual scenario.
Glad this formulation is useful! I do indeed think that people often behave like you describe, without generally losing huge sums of cash.
However, the conclusion of my post is that it is irational to deviate from expected utility for small sums. Agregating every small decision you make will give you expected utility.