HamletHenna comments on Decision Theories, Part 3.5: Halt, Melt and Catch Fire - Less Wrong

31 Post author: orthonormal 26 August 2012 10:40PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 28 August 2012 04:41:05AM *  1 point [-]

if one is found, then output aj otherwise, output ak

What are "if", "then", and "otherwise"?

Let's consider the following mask agent, which we'll call AntiFairBot: it searches for a proof that its opponent cooperates against it, and it defects if it finds one; if it doesn't find such a proof, then it cooperates. This may not be a very optimal agent, but it has one interesting property: if you pit AntiFairBot against FairBot, and the two of them use equivalent oracles, then it takes an oracle stronger than either to deduce what the two of them will do!

What do they do?

Comment author: orthonormal 28 August 2012 03:06:17PM 1 point [-]

What are "if", "then", and "otherwise"?

Um, they're pseudocode. I'm not sure what your objection is...

What do they do?

My intuition is that they'll both fail to deduce that the other cooperates, and thus output their default actions. However, I imagine that there could be rigged-up versions such that FairBot deduces AntiFairBot's cooperation at the last possible second and thus cooperates, while AntiFairBot runs out of time and thus cooperates.

(Think about the other possibilities, including one of them deducing the other's cooperation with deductive capacity to spare, and you'll see that all other possibilities are inconsistent.)

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