RichardKennaway comments on A simple counterexample to deBlanc 2007? - Less Wrong

3 Post author: PhilGoetz 30 May 2011 05:09AM

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Comment author: komponisto 30 May 2011 06:08:09AM *  2 points [-]

Peter de Blanc ... claims to show that a utility function can have a value only if the utility function is bounded.

This is important because it implies that, if a utility function is unbounded, it is useless.

From the LW wiki (emphasis added):

Peter de Blanc has proven that if an agent assigns a finite probability to all computable hypotheses...and assigns unboundedly large finite utilities over percept sequences...then the sum in the expected utility formula does not converge.

Peter de Blanc's paper [is] sometimes misinterpreted as showing that any agent with an unbounded finite utility function over outcomes is not consistent, but this has yet to be demonstrated.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 30 May 2011 10:53:17AM *  1 point [-]

What distinction is being drawn in the wiki article between percept sequences and outcomes? The agent's perceptions are its only clue to the outcomes it has achieved, so a utility function over outcomes reduces, via the agent's posterior distribution of outcomes given perceptions, to one over perceptions.

ETA: I'm itching to add a {{by whom}} tag after "sometimes" and {{citation needed}} after "misinterpreted", but I don't think the LW wiki supports those. The implication of the sentence is that some people have interpreted the paper that way and at least one person has argued that this is incorrect, but who and where?

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