SoullessAutomaton comments on Why Support the Underdog? - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Yvain 05 April 2009 12:01AM

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Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 05 April 2009 01:35:35AM 4 points [-]

In other words, if Zug believes you to be the kind of agent who will make the naively rational decision to side with him, he will not reward you. You then side with Zug, because it makes more sense.

However, if Zug believes you to be the kind of agent who will irrationally oppose him unless bribed, he will reward you. You then side with Zug, because it makes more sense.

This seems to be another problem of precommitment.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 April 2009 05:54:54AM 4 points [-]

While my own decision theory has no need of precommitment, it's interesting to consider that genes have no trouble with precommitments; they just make us want to do it that way. The urge to revenge, for example, can be considered as the genes making a sort of believable and true precommitment; you don't reconsider afterward, once you get the benefits, because - thanks to the genes - it's what you want. The genes don't have quite the same calculus as an inconsistent classical decision theorist who knows beforehand that they want to precommit early but will want to reconsider later.