Caspian comments on Counterfactual Mugging - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 19 March 2009 06:08AM

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

Comments (257)

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

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 05 April 2009 11:05:24AM *  1 point [-]

Do you have a point?

Comment author: Caspian 05 April 2009 12:45:02PM 15 points [-]

Yes, that there can just as easily be a superintelligence that rewards people predicted to act one way as one that rewards people predicted to act the other. Which precommitment is most rational depends depends on the which type you expect to encounter.

I don't expect to encounter either, and on the other hand I can't rule out fallible human analogues of either. So for now I'm not precommitting either way.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 05 April 2009 02:44:30PM *  9 points [-]

You don't precommit to "give away the $100, to anyone who asks". You precommit to give away the $100 in exactly the situation I described. Or, generalizing such precommitments, you just compute your decisions on the spot, in a reflectively consistent fashion. If that's what you want do to with your future self, that is.

Comment author: Jonii 23 July 2009 08:12:00AM 6 points [-]

there can just as easily be a superintelligence that rewards people predicted to act one way as one that rewards people predicted to act the other.

Yeah, now. But after Omega really, really, appears in front of you, chance of Omega existing is about 1. Chance of No-Mega is still almost non-existent. In this problem, existence of Omega is given. It's not something you are expecting to encounter now, just as we're not expecting to encounter eccentric Kavkan billionaires that will give you money for toxicating yourself. The Kavka's Toxin and the counterfactual mugging present a scenario that is given, and ask you how would you act then.