Liron comments on VNM expected utility theory: uses, abuses, and interpretation - Less Wrong
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Comments (48)
I don't see that you've offered a better alternative to VNM utility.
Your examples assert that VNM does a bad job of capturing subtleties in the structure of human preference. But they can all be fixed by using the appropriate outcome-space as your utility function's domain.
For example, if I prefer to decide which child gets a car with a fair coin flip, then I can represent my utility function like this:
To me this seems like an elegant enough way to capture my value of fairness. And this kind of VNM formulation is so precise that I think it is useful for defining exactly how I value fairness.
I think the alternate utility theories introduce complexity without improving decision theory.
But I did upvote this post, because I think it's a good discussion to have.