Daniel_Burfoot comments on Inherited Improbabilities: Transferring the Burden of Proof - Less Wrong

30 Post author: komponisto 24 November 2010 03:40AM

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Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 24 November 2010 05:39:29PM 4 points [-]

Great analysis. I am a little bit worried about adopting the idea of Bayesian logic in the criminal justice system, though, since it seems like it will just give people an incentive to commit a priori improbable crimes!

Comment author: jimmy 24 November 2010 09:38:10PM *  2 points [-]

This amounts to saying that we should crank up the innocent/guilty conviction ratio for things that are improbable, which doesn't make much sense. The only way we'd catch more low a priori criminals is by lowering our standards of evidence, which necessarily means convicting more innocents.

That's no more helpful than saying "I'm worried that there's going to be an incentive not to get caught because we only punish the criminals we think are guilty". We still can't punish someone we don't think is guilty- but as an aside, it does mean we should punish effort spent on not getting caught.

Comment author: DanielLC 25 November 2010 06:42:02AM 3 points [-]

We could also catch more low a priori criminals by improving our methods of dealing with the evidence, like using Bayesian logic.