kybernetikos comments on Problematic Problems for TDT - Less Wrong
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We were discussing if it is a "fair" test of the decision theory, not if it provides a "fair" experience to any people/agents that are instantiated within the scenario.
I am aware that they are different problems. That is why the version of the problem in which simulated agents get utility that the real agent cares about does nothing to address the criticism of TDT that it loses in the version where simulated agents get no utility. Postulating the former in response to the latter was a fail in using the Least Convenient Possible World.
The complaints about Omega being untrustworthy are weak. Just reformulate the problem so Omega says to all agents, simulated or otherwise, "You are participating in a game that involves simulated agents and you may or may not be one of the simulated agents yourself. The agents involved in the game are the following: <describes agents' roles in third person>".
Good point.
That clears up the summing utility across possible worlds possibility, but it still doesn't address the fact that the TDT agent is being asked to (potentially) make two decisions while the non-TDT agent is being asked to make only one. That seems to me to make the scenario unfair (it's what I was trying to get at in the 'very different problems' statement).