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saturn comments on UDT agents as deontologists - Less Wrong
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I feel again as if I do not understand what Timeless Decision Theory or Updateless Decision Theory is (or what it's for; what it adds to ordinary decision theory). Can anyone help me? For example, by providing the simplest possible example of one of these "decision theories" in action?
Suppose we have an agent that cares about something extremely simple, like number of paperclips in the world. More paperclips is a better world. Can someone provide an example of how TDT or UDT would matter, or would make a difference, or would be applied, by an entity which made its decisions using that criterion?
This is my vague understanding.
Naive decision theory: "Choose the action that will cause the highest expected utility, given what I know now."
Timeless decision theory: "Choose the action that I wish I had precommitted to, given what I know now."
Updateless decision theory: "Choose a set of rules that will cause the highest expected utility given my priors, then stick to it no matter what happens."
If this is accurate, then I don't see how UDT can generally be better than TDT.
UDT would be better in circumstances where you suspect that your ability to update accurately is compromised.
I'm assuming that the priors for UDT were set at some past time.
UDT gives the money in the counterfactual mugging thought experiment, TDT doesn't.
There's nothing that prevents a UDT agent from behaving as if it were updating; that's what I surmise would happen in more normal situations where Omega isn't involved. But if ignoring information is the winning move, TDT can't do that.