timtyler comments on How to measure optimisation power - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 25 May 2012 11:07AM

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

Comments (30)

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

Comment author: timtyler 29 May 2012 11:42:10PM 0 points [-]

"An optimisation of zero" ?!? <fx: shakes head, despairingly>

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 30 May 2012 08:49:28AM 0 points [-]

Are you objecting to the phrasing or to the point?

Comment author: timtyler 30 May 2012 09:48:04AM *  0 points [-]

That was the terminology - though it isn't just the terminology that is busted here.

Frankly, I find it hard to believe that you seem to be taking this idea seriously.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 30 May 2012 05:00:51PM 2 points [-]

I haven't decided whether the idea is good or bad yet - I haven't yet evaluated it properly.

But as far as I can tell, your objection to it is incorrect. A naive search program would have very low optimisation power by Eliezer's criteria - is there a flaw in my argument?

Comment author: timtyler 30 May 2012 11:10:49PM *  2 points [-]

Essentially I agree that that particular objection is largely ineffectual. It is possible to build resource constraints into the environment if you like - though usually resource constraints are at least partly to do with the agent.

Resource constraints need to be specified somewhere. Otherwise exhaustive search (10 mins) gets one score and exhaustive search (10 years) gets another score - and the metric isn't well defined.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 31 May 2012 08:31:42AM 3 points [-]

If you see the optimisation score as being attached to a particular system (agent+code+hardware+power available), then there isn't a problem. It's only if you want to talk about the optimisation power of an algorithm in a platonic sense, that the definition fails.

Essentially I agree that that particular objection is largely ineffectual.

Upvoted because admitting to error is rare and admirable, even on Less Wrong :-)