nyan_sandwich comments on An Attempt at Preference Uncertainty Using VNM - Less Wrong

8 [deleted] 16 July 2013 05:20AM

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Comment author: Karl 16 July 2013 03:02:49PM *  4 points [-]

You can't simply average the km's. Suppose you estimate .5 probability that k2 should be twice k1 and .5 probability that k1 should be twice k2. Then if you normalize k1 to 1, k2 will average to 1.25, while similarly if you normalize k2 to 1, k1 will average to 1.25.

In general, to each choice of km's will correspond a utility function and the utility function we should use will be a linear combination of those utility functions and we will have renormalization parameters k'm and, if we accept the argument given in your post, those k'm ought to be just as dependant on your preferences, so you're probably also uncertain about the values that those parameters should take and so you obtain k''m's and so on ad infinitum. So you obtain an infinite tower of uncertain parameters and it isn't obvious how to obtain a utility function out of this mess.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 July 2013 04:02:18PM 1 point [-]

You can't simply average the km's.

Hmm. I'll have to take a closer look at that. You mean that the uncertainties are correlated, right?

and we will have renormalization parameters k'm and

Can you show where you got that? My impression was that once we got to the set of (equivalent, only difference is scale) utility functions, averaging them just works without room for more fine-tuning.

But as I said, that part is shaky because I haven't actually supported those intuitions with any particular assumptions. We'll see what happens when we build it up from more solid ideas.

Comment author: Karl 16 July 2013 04:48:04PM 3 points [-]

Hmm. I'll have to take a closer look at that. You mean that the uncertainties are correlated, right?

No. To quote your own post:

A similar process allows us to arbitrarily set exactly one of the km.

I meant that the utility function resulting from averaging over your uncertainty over the km's will depend on which km you chose to arbitrarily set in this way. I gave an example of this phenomenon in my original comment.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 July 2013 07:11:03PM 3 points [-]

Oh sorry. I get what you mean now. Thanks.

I'll have to think about that and see where the mistake is. That's pretty serious, though.